Parenting Advice on Helping Kids Make Friends
With Open Communication, Parents Impart Important Social Skills
May 20, 2009
If parents nurture a secure and loving bond with their children, their kids will be more likely to approach others confidently, expecting to be met with similarly happy encounters as they venture outside the family. Watching a child’s surprise as he’s rejected at the playground or passed over in a group activity can be heart breaking for a parent. At times like these, it’s a parent’s job to start the communication and turn the situation around.
Parenting Advice on the Benefits of Open Emotional Communication
In 2008’s November/December issue of Child Development, the University of Illinois published a study, "A Process Model of Attachment-Friend Linkages: Hostile Attribution Biases, Language Ability, and Mother-Child Affective Mutuality as Intervening Mechanisms" which included over 1,000 children and their mothers. The study finds that kids who are able to share openly with their moms are more likely to develop strong relationships in the future. “When kids feel comfortable talking about their emotions, especially their negative emotions, it increases their social competence with classmates and leads to closer friendships,” Nancy McElwain, the study’s lead author, was quoted in the February 17, 2009 issue of Science Daily.
A parent’s first instinct may be to bury an awkward social moment for her preschooler, but helping a child work through those negative emotions will go a long way to insuring happier times ahead.
Parenting Help, Open-Ended Questions Get Communication Rolling
With open-ended questions, parents can help their children discover ways of making friends such as offering compliments, finding common interests, or listening. Finding teachable moments in everyday interaction works well for this. Parents might observe, “Hey, she just said she likes your new princess shirt? How does that make you feel when people say something nice to you? I’ll bet she likes princesses just like you. Do you want to talk to her about that?"
Parents can also take a few minutes to debrief after their preschoolers’ interaction with peers. Communication can get flowing with questions such as, “Was that a fun time at the park? Did you enjoy playing with those children? What did that boy say when he asked you to play? What if you wanted to be the one to ask a kid to play with you, how would you do it?”
If children say they enjoyed themselves, parents can take the opportunity to help them see why. They can point out things such as, “Yes, I saw how you smiled when that boy asked you to play with him. How did it make you feel? How do you think it would make that boy over there feel if you asked him to play with you guys too?”
If children confide they did not have fun, or that the kids were not nice, parents can try to get them to put into words what bothered them. They can ask, “What let you know the kids weren’t behaving nicely? How did that make you feel? What can you do the next time you see kids acting this way?”
Unfortunately, the kids most prone to dish out the playground taunts and rejection are probably the ones in most need of a nurturing and secure relationship. It’s this firm bond that serves as children’s protective cushion for life’s emotional scrapes. Unpleasant social encounters will sting, but if children have a place to unload, they’re bound to bounce back.
Kids aren’t the only ones learning. Moms and dads might want to check out parenting help on using praise appropriately, parenting advice on teaching kids to clean, and parenting tips on the importance of allowing children to make choices.
