The ability to establish and maintain healthy friendships, communicate effectively, resolve conflicts, resist peer pressure and collaborate are important in life, and in school. But, it is almost inevitable that your daughter will, during the course of her school life, experience some form of friendship issue. We share some proven approaches to equip you to best support your child to navigate school friendships:
Accept it is going to happen
This is perhaps the biggest single step that will help you to help your daughter navigate their friendships.
They are growing up, individuals are changing, expressing themselves in different ways and learning along the way. Friendship groups will change, someone will try and find a new friendship, and one child may feel ignored. Something may go wrong in a group and, in trying to navigate a complex situation, girls can make poor choices and handle it badly. Friendship dynamics can get messy. Add social media into the mix with words pinging via messaging and text, and the margin for error is amplified.
When things go wrong, encourage your daughter to step back and ask whether this is just one individual having a lapse in judgement rather than a real problem. Or, perhaps a friendship has become unhealthy and it’s time to gradually distance herself and gravitate towards different friends. Acknowledge that this is okay; people change and grow and will not always remain close friends.
Cultivate open communication
Maintaining open and honest lines of communication between yourself and your child will in turn help her to forge stronger relationships with her peers. Find the time and space to listen and let your daughter share her thoughts and concerns.
Do bear in mind you’ll never get the whole picture and ‘the truth’ does not exist objectively in the way we’d like it to. What we hear is one person’s account of their experience of a situation. Our reflex is to automatically believe our child has been wronged, but be open to the idea that there is likely to be another child feeling exactly the same way.
Teach kindness and empathy
Empathy is a critical skill for building healthy friendships. Parents who model empathy and teach kindness have children with lower levels of aggression and higher levels of social behaviour, according to research. Our school ethos is Kind and Bold and we encourage students to consider the feelings of others and to act with kindness.
Promote resilience
Coping strategies and emotional resilience can buffer the effects of any negativity among friends. Help your child develop problem-solving skills, teach them healthy coping strategies, and provide emotional support.
Promote self-confidence
Developing assertiveness skills can help girls establish and maintain healthy boundaries in their friendships. Encourage your daughter to express her opinions, stand up for herself and assert her personal boundaries. Developing the ability to say no to something that makes a child feel uncomfortable is important and can protect them from giving in to peer pressure as they go through school.
Encourage extra-curricular activities
Organised extra curricular activities are a great way for girls to form friendships based on shared interests. As teachers we see it is often best for students to have a friendship group rather than one ‘best friend’, and activities are a great way to form new bonds. Trying something new encourages girls to take risks, developing resilience and confidence, and helps students overcome shyness. At Brighton Girls extra curricular activities range from boxing to ballet, yoga to skateboarding, sea sports and coding, with almost 100 different activities on offer.
Work with school and ask the right questions
Collaborate with teachers, attend parent-teacher meetings, and report any concerns. Instead of asking the school What do you do about bullying? Get a real insight by also asking:
– Are the classes changed every year?
This helps build resilience as students are thrown into different friendship groups.
– About the school values and how they’re used in discussion with students.
– How does the school talk about friendships?
Dealing with bullying
The NSPCC defines bullying as behaviour that hurts someone else. It includes name calling, hitting, pushing, spreading rumours, threatening or undermining someone. Schools teach students the signs of bullying and have procedures for reporting and managing bullying. If your child is being bullied, be available to talk about their worries and make sure they know who to talk to for support, either yourself or perhaps a teacher they trust. Reassure them that it is not their fault, reinforce that they are loved and help them regain confidence. Signs of bullying and cyberbullying are outlined here.
Friendship fallouts at school happen and most are, thankfully, not due to bullying. Mostly, there is no winner or loser, or clarity around what occurred. Friendships change and can simply get messy. By helping your daughter to navigate the complexities of friendships you are equipping her to develop healthy and supportive relationships in life.
