How to Help Your Children Build Healthier Friendships (and Deal with the Difficult Ones)

How to Help Kids Build Healthier Friendships (And Deal With the Difficult Ones)

There are times that I have the social skills of a tapeworm – who doesn’t – but for me, they’re usually pre-coffee, mid hunger, or during some sort of cardio exercise that sounded like a decent idea until I started to sweat – around about the two minute mark. What’s important though, is that the skills are there when I need them. It’s the same for our kids.

Being able to form positive relationships is critical to every facet of life – home, school, career. That said, there are plenty of adults (many in leadership or management!) whose lack of social grace is far beyond the simple remedy of coffee, food, or the acceptance that it takes more than a water bottle to turn oneself into an athlete.

What helps children build better friendships?

A recent study has found that children who have a secure attachment to their parents are more likely to develop healthy friendships and adapt to a difficult playmate by asserting his or her needs.

Children who are securely attached:

  • become visibly upset when their parent leaves the room and happy again upon reunion;
  • will look to their parent or caregiver for comfort in an unfamiliar or frightening situation;
  • will use their parent as a base from which to explore their environment, returning now and then for a confidence boost.

The study, published in Developmental Psychology, measured the security of child-mother attachment for 114 children at 33 months of age. Six months later, the same children were randomly paired with another child of the same gender and observed. This was done three times over the course of a month.

Researchers found that children who had a secure attachment to their parents were more responsive to their new playmate at the first meeting, even if that playmate was prone to anger. Securely attached kids continued to respond positively to their playmate on the second and third visits when the playmate displayed low anger, but not high anger.

As explained by researcher Professor Nancy McElwain, ‘Securely attached children are more responsive to suggestions or requests made by a new peer partner. A child who has experienced a secure attachment relationship with caregivers is likely to come into a new peer relationship with positive expectations.’

During play a securely attached child:

  • has an expectation that their interactions with other kids will be positive;
  • will quickly adjust their response to a difficult playmate who is quick to become frustrated or angry;
  • will likely use suggestions and requests rather than demands and intrusive behaviour (such as snatching) when playing with a tetchy playmate;
  • will eventually adapt to the controlling assertiveness of an anger-prone playmate by becoming more controlling themselves.

There is a vast and convincing body of research that has demonstrated how a secure attachment between a parent and child not only affects friendships, but also increases a child’s sense of security, self-esteem, self-control, and the capacity to learn and remember in school. These studies have involved observing new mothers with their babies then following those babies into childhood and through to young adulthood.

Forming a Secure Attachment – How?

I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea to make us do the most important job we’ll ever do on the least sleep we’ll ever have, but that’s new motherhood for you. I love being a mum – love it – but those first six months, all these years on, continue to be a blur.

That’s a good thing. I’d go so far as to say survival-of-the-species good, because the further away I get from the crazy, exhausting, wonderful ride of new motherhood, the more I convince myself that I got it right on more days than I got it wrong. (Perhaps by the time I’m 90, I’ll remember myself as a new mother so poised and polished as to be fiercely scouted for baby shampoo commercials – but too busy being excellent to say ‘What? Me? Sure. I’ll help you with your commercial. But I just have to harvest my organically home-grown vegies. Oh. And can we schedule it around the little one’s sleeps. Three weeks old and already sleeps so well – you know – easily and often. I think the times tables I sing as he’s falling asleep really help. Pfft – it was nothing like that. Nothing at all.)

Chances are, in those times you feel like you’re getting it right (and sheer exhaustion can make it seem like there are less of those times than there actually are), you’re probably doing exactly what you need to do to develop a secure attachment with your baby.

Secure attachment is not about parents subjugating all of their own needs in favour of their baby’s. The research is important and well established, but of course has to be considered in light of personal circumstances.

Take the research and do with it what you can. Anything you are able to incorporate will add to the tightness of your family bundle.

If you are open to the knowledge and in tune with the needs of your child, you will make it work, even if it doesn’t look exactly as the research says it should. Ultimately, as the parent, you know best, but if you are open to what half a century of research has shown us, you can know even more.

century of research has shown us, you can know even more.

Now for the research. What we know is that a positive relationship between a baby and caregiver influences brain growth. There is a saying in the field, ‘The neurons that fire together, wire together.’ What this means is that through a positive relationship, neural connections in the baby’s brain are made that, in a sense, ‘store security’. Parents of securely attached children play more with their children and are more responsive to the child’s needs than parents of insecurely attached children.

Decades of research on attachment have given us a very clear idea of what leads to a secure attachment:

For Babies
  1. Have one regular, consistent caregiver for the first six months of the baby’s life.  A baby learns to trust and thrives best, now and in the future, when somebody is there to provide consistent care and affection. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a mother, father,  grandparent or adopted parent, the point is that one primary person in the first six months is more likely to produce a securely attached child than a series of people working together to fill in the gaps. That’s not to say that other people aren’t important – they absolutely are, not the least of which is to look after the primary carer of the baby for whom the first six months can be a completely exhausting, sometimes thankless, time. What’s important is that one person, rather than a stream of several, is there consistently for the baby.
  2. Establish a routine for eating, sleeping and play. Having a routine allows the baby to develop the security and comfort that comes with predictability. The baby knows who and what to expect and when to expect it.
  3. Be affectionate. Smile, touch, cuddle. Nothing is more important. In a famous experiment in the 1950s baby monkeys chose a cuddly soft mother surrogate over a wire mother figure, even thought the wire one offered food.
  4. Respond to your baby’s cues for comfort. Responding to a baby’s distress or cues for comfort and attention with warmth and confidence will help them to develop trust and a feeling of security. When a baby cries, smiles or reaches out with their arms and a parent or caregiver responds warmly and sensitively, the baby learns that they can count on their caregiver to be their for them and a secure attachment is built. But – and this is a very important ‘but’ – smother them and they’ll become less securely attached. Babies need to be given the opportunity to develop confidence in their own ability to soothe themselves. Responding to every noise, whimper, cry and gurgle will undermine their independence. That said, the experts generally agree that a young baby shouldn’t be left to cry for more than a few minutes, but that doesn’t mean that the baby needs to be rushed over to and picked up every time he or she makes a noise. Research has shown that when a baby’s cries have been responded to consistently and sensitively, they will cry less by the end of their first year and will be more independent and co-operative when they are older.
  5. Follow your baby’s lead. By going along with your baby when they initiate a game or interaction, you’re teaching them that they are able to influence their environment and the people in it. This is a critical part of forming friendships.
For Children
  1. Be reliable and responsive. Even people who abuse their children claim to love them. What they don’t do is tune in to their child’s signals and respond to their needs.
  2. Spend real time together. Spending time together – without electronics – will help establish reward circuits in the brain for empathy and connecting.
  3. Enforce boundaries. It’s part of their growth and development to test the limits. Part of making them secure is letting them know where the boundaries are. It’s like double checking that you’ve locked the door – you’re sure its locked but checking again makes you feel more secure.
  4. Listen to everything – even the crazy nonsense. Listening to everything lets them know you’ll be there to listen when it’s important too. If you pick and choose when to listen, they’ll pick and choose when and what to tell you – and you don’t want that.
  5. Have fun. Be silly. Be open to your kids and the funny things they do. They can be pretty hilarious at times. Laugh with them at the world and at yourself and you’ll be giving them something awesome.
For Adolescents
  1. Respond to their needs. Sometimes this will mean staying away and giving them space, sometimes this will mean bringing them a hot chocolate while they sweat over books well into the night, sometimes this will mean just giving them a hug and saying nothing at all.
  2. Listen. Listen. Listen. Be careful offering them too much advice. You’ll have them at the listening. For most teens, you’ll lose them just as quickly if you preach.
  3. Communicate love, appreciation and support. This means sometimes putting a lid on the anxiety you might be feeling around their performance or their risky behaviour. They need to know that you trust them and respect them. And that you’ll be there to dust them off – not an ‘I told you so’ in sight – when things don’t look exactly as it did in their adolescent , adventurous mind.
  4. Praise them verbally. They might act like it doesn’t matter, but it does.
  5. Have fun with their sense of humour. Your adolescent will be developing a very grown up sense of humour. Go with it. Laugh at it. Cherish it. It will mean the world to them.

Just because one of your kiddos might be difficult, that does not mean they are insecurely attached. A small child might be fussy or demanding but if parents respond sensitively, a strong parent-child bond can be established. There’s no reason that child won’t go on to have strong, close relationships with their peers.

Genes are genes, not destiny. Ditto with early life. It’s a clue, not a prescription. The brain is always open to changing – the word is plasticity. What this means is that at any point in the life span, people can have experiences that initiate neural growth towards more positive behaviours.

Children develop social skills over time. If yours is the one who believes, with all of her two year old heart, that sharing is for gumbies, and tries with admirable effort and voice to convince others of her leadership potential, there’s no need for concern.

Stay tuned in and keep responding sensitively and sooner or later, they’ll be thankful.

4 Comments

Liz

Thank you! This has been really helpful. I have a 19 year old, a 15 year old and a 12 year old all offering us new challenges as parents and this reassured me that we probably did enough right in the early days and are usually responding well enough now that we will all survive!

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Jo Ward

I am an early childhood teacher in New Zealand, working with 0 – 2 year olds and I have recently completed a course of study in Infant and Toddler Mental Health. I absolutely loved reading this article as it translated a technical subject full of big words and research terminology into everyday language. The subject is one I am so passionate about and I spend a lot of time engaged with parents about what secure attachments look like. Thank you for this article – I will pass this on to the parents in our nursery.

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Melbourne, Adelaide … Will you join us? 

The @resilientkidsconference is coming to Melbourne (15 July) and Adelaide (2 September), and we’d love you to join us.

We’ve had a phenomenal response to this conference. Parents and carers are telling us that they’re walking away feeling even more confident, with strategies and information they can use straight away. That’s what this conference is all about. 

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I’ll be joining with @maggiedentauthor, @michellemitchell.author, and @drjustincoulson. We’ve got you covered! And we’re there for the day, with you. 

For tickets or more info, search ‘Resilient Kids Conference’ on Google, or go to this link https://www.resilientkidsconference.com.au/conference/.
We have to change the way we talk about anxiety. If we talk about it as a disorder, this is how it feels.

Yes anxiety can be so crushing, and yes it can intrude into every part of their everyday. But the more we talk about anxiety as a disorder, the more we drive ‘anxiety about the anxiety’. Even for big anxiety, there is nothing to be served in talking about it as a disorder. 

There is another option. We change the face of it - from an intruder or deficiency, to an ally. We change the story - from ‘There’s something wrong with me’ to, ‘I’m doing something hard.’ I’ve seen the difference this makes, over and over.

This doesn’t mean we ignore anxiety. Actually we do the opposite. We acknowledge it. We explain it for what it is: the healthy, powerful response of a magnificent brain that is doing exactly what brains are meant to do - protect us. This is why I wrote Hey Warrior.

What we focus on is what becomes powerful. If we focus on the anxiety, it will big itself up to unbearable.

What we need to do is focus on both sides - the anxiety and the brave. Anxiety, courage, strength - they all exist together. 

Anxiety isn’t the absence of brave, it’s the calling of brave. It’s there because you’re about to do something hard, brave, meaningful - not because there’s something wrong with you.

First, acknowledge the anxiety. Without this validation, anxiety will continue to do its job and prepare the body for fight or flight, and drive big feelings to recruit the safety of another human.

Then, we speak to the brave. We know it’s there, so we usher it into the light:

‘Yes I know this is big. It’s hard [being away from the people you love] isn’t it. And I know you can do this. We can do hard things can’t we.

You are one of the bravest, strongest people I know. Being brave feels scary and hard sometimes doesn’t it. It feels like brave isn’t there, but it’s always there. Always. And you know what else I know? It gets easier every time. I’ve know this because I’ve seen you do hard things, and because I’ve felt like this too, so many times. I know that you and me, even when we feel anxious, we can do brave. It’s always in you. I know that for certain.’♥️
Our job as parents isn’t to remove their distress around boundaries, but to give them the experiences to recognise they can handle boundaries - holding theirs and respecting the boundaries others. 

Every time we hold a boundary, we are giving our kids the precious opportunity to learn how to hold their own.

If we don’t have boundaries, the risk is that our children won’t either. We can talk all we want about the importance of boundaries, but if we don’t show them, how can they learn? Inadvertently, by avoiding boundary collisions with them, we are teaching them to avoid conflict at all costs. 

In practice, this might look like learning to put themselves, their needs, and their feelings away for the sake of peace. Alternatively, they might feel the need to control other people and situations even more. If they haven’t had the experience of surviving a collision of needs or wants, and feeling loved and accepted through that, conflicting needs will feel scary and intolerable.

Similarly, if we hold our boundaries too harshly and meet their boundary collisions with shame, yelling, punishment or harsh consequences, this is how we’re teaching them to respond to disagreement, or diverse needs and wants. We’re teaching them to yell, fight dirty, punish, or overbear those who disagree. 

They might also go the other way. If boundaries are associated with feeling shamed, lonely, ‘bad’, they might instead surrender boundaries and again put themselves away to preserve the relationship and the comfort of others. This is because any boundary they hold might feel too much, too cruel, or too rejecting, so ‘no boundary’ will be the safest option. 

If we want our children to hold their boundaries respectfully and kindly, and with strength, we will have to go first.

It’s easy to think there are only two options. Either:
- We focus on the boundary at the expense of the relationship and staying connected to them.
- We focus on the connection at the expense of the boundary. 

But there is a third option, and that is to do both - at the same time. We hold the boundary, while at the same time we attend to the relationship. We hold the boundary, but with warmth.♥️
Sometimes finding the right words is hard. When their words are angry and out of control, it’s because that’s how they feel. 

Eventually we want to grow them into people who can feel all their feelings and lasso them into words that won’t break people, but this will take time.

In the meantime, they’ll need us to model the words and hold the boundaries firmly and lovingly. This might sound like:

‘It’s okay to be angry, and it’s okay not to like my decision. It’s not okay to speak to me like that. I know you know that. My answer is still no.’

Then, when they’re back to calm, have the conversation: 

‘I wonder if sometimes when you say you don’t like me, what you really mean is that you don’t like what I’ve done. It’s okay to be angry at me. It’s okay to tell me you’re angry at me. It’s not okay to be disrespectful.

What’s important is that you don’t let what someone has done turn you into someone you’re not. You’re such a great kid. You’re fun, funny, kind, honest, respectful. I know you know that yelling mean things isn’t okay. What might be a better way to tell me that you’re angry, or annoyed at what I’ve said?’♥️
We humans feel safest when we know where the edges are. Without boundaries it can feel like walking along the edge of a mountain without guard rails.

Boundaries must come with two things - love and leadership. They shouldn’t feel hollow, and they don’t need to feel like brick walls. They can be held firmly and lovingly.

Boundaries without the ‘loving’ will feel shaming, lonely, harsh. Understandably children will want to shield from this. This ‘shielding’ looks like keeping their messes from us. We drive them into the secretive and the forbidden because we squander precious opportunities to guide them.

Harsh consequences don’t teach them to avoid bad decisions. They teach them to avoid us.

They need both: boundaries, held lovingly.

First, decide on the boundary. Boundaries aren’t about what we want them to do. We can’t control that. Boundaries are about what we’ll do when the rules are broken.

If the rule is, ‘Be respectful’ - they’re in charge of what they do, you’re in charge of the boundary.

Attend to boundaries AND relationship. ‘It’s okay to be angry at me. (Rel’ship) No, I won’t let you speak to me like that. (Boundary). I want to hear what you have to say. (R). I won’t listen while you’re speaking like that. (B). I’m  going to wait until you can speak in a way I can hear. I’m right here. (R).

If the ‘leadership’ part is hard, think about what boundaries meant for you when you were young. If they felt cruel or shaming, it’s understandable that that’s how boundaries feel for you now. You don’t have to do boundaries the way your parents did. Don’t get rid of the boundary. Add in a loving way to hold them.

If the ‘loving’ part is hard, and if their behaviour enrages you, what was it like for you when you had big feelings as a child? If nobody supported you through feelings or behaviour, it’s understandable that their big feelings and behaviour will drive anger in you.

Anger exists as a shield for other more vulnerable feelings. What might your anger be shielding - loneliness? Anxiety? Feeling unseen? See through the behaviour to the need or feeling behind it: This is a great kid who is struggling right now. Reject the behaviour, support the child.♥️

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