How to support your kid with friendships
Some children thrive in the playground and make friends easily. For other kids, friendships are tricky to navigate.
When your child comes home sad about the fact that no one played with them today, or that someone was unkind to them, we feel their pain viscerally and it can feel like our own heart might just break in two.
The thought of our kids feeling left out or hurt emotionally without anyone there to help them can light a fire under us. We want to jump into action - call the school, drill our kid to find out the names of the kids who did this, or dive into a monologue of advice about ‘playing with someone else’.
While these responses come from a place of love and protectiveness for our child, they are often more about how we are feeling than our kid.
The truth is all kids will have days where things don’t go right in the playground and not all of these struggles need a parent to intervene. But what point do you step in, and what should you do to support your child’s friendships, without making everything worse?
Here are some tips for when your kid is struggling with friends:
1. Pause, don't panic
For most of us, our kid revealing an experience of feeling lonely or excluded may bring up feelings from our own experiences. We remember being told we couldn’t join in, or being picked last for a team, and this can make us want to protect our child from the feelings we remember all too well.
We can also jump into the future. “If my child can’t make friends now, maybe never find their people’.
We can quickly and easily go to the place of panic, blame, or shame which can lead to us overreacting, and not really getting a sense of the full picture. When we overreact, we teach our child these moments are a disaster that they are unable to navigate. Rather than the reality which is struggles in friendships are normal, and will continue on into adulthood so the skills to navigate these moments mater.
Next time your child says “no one would play with me” try pausing and taking one big slow breath in and out before you do anything else. This brings us back to the present, and out of the future. This helps us be steady enough to lead our child.
2. Be curious, not judgemental
When your child tells us no one played with them it can make you want to spring into ‘super-parent mode’ faster than a speeding bullet.
We want to fix this. Immediately.
We drill our kid to find out ‘who did it’ (so we can talk to their parents, which never, ever goes well by the way!) Or we ask our child if they told the teacher, or sometimes we may jump to a lecture about the fact that maybe if they were kinder to others for example, this wouldn’t be happening.
We kind of know none of these reactions are what our kids need. Deep down, we know what our kids need. They need the same thing we all need when we have a hard time: To be heard.
To really hear our kid is to be in a place of curiosity rather than judgement. From this place we can really get a sense of what the experience was like for them. We get more information because our kids are more likely to open up.
Remaining curious allows to listen without joining our kids in their distress. They look to us for cues about how they should react and feel, so if we fall apart, it can feel much scarier for them. If we can remain steady, they get to borrow that sense of confidence.
You might simply nod and remain open and repeat back what you hear. “You couldn’t find anyone to play with at lunch? What did you wind up doing?”
3. Become a social coach
Making and retaining friends is a skill.
More than being simply being ‘popular’ or not, kids are learning to read complex social cues, take tuns and share, and have empathy or perspective take. It’s a lot to learn and all kids will have ups and downs. It’s also important to remember that kids develop at different rates, while some kids are emotionally able to take their ‘outs’ in handball, or give feedback without being hurtful, others are still learning.
Kids often need coaching as they build up these skill sets. A good coach is 90% general feedback and only 10% advice.
This is just making sure we understand what happened and how it made our child feel, and what they’ve already tried. This process helps our child to replay what happened while safe and connected and helps the brain to process it.
I love to use the word ‘wonder’ when coaching because it’s less confrontational and it opens us and our child up to being more creative with the answers. It may sound like this: ‘Feeling left out is really tough. Have you thought about what you might do if it happened again tomorrow? I wonder if you have ideas about what you could do?
It is in this supported and open environment that you can help your child to come up with a plan that may or may not involve letting the school know. I have found over the years that the best solutions for friendship fires or struggles at school have come from my kids.
3. Try being a friend detective
In year two one of my sons was trying to join in with a group of boys who played basketball at lunch. Sometimes they would let him, but it was conditional. He didn’t get as much time on the court as others, and often was told he could only watch. I’d tried to tell him to play with ‘someone else’ or suggest he played with someone else who was more welcoming, but he wouldn’t have a bar of it. He wanted to be friends with these boys… from what I could see these boys were not as interested in him as he was in them.
We had a breakthrough one day when I suggested he might go to school and be a ‘friend detective’. A friend detective goes to school with their detective hat on. They look for who smiles at them and includes them and who doesn’t seem so open. A friend detective notices how people make them feel. They also look around and try to spot other kids who might be alone or looking for someone to play with.
Within two days with his ‘detective hat on’ my son told me he wasn’t trying to join in with the original boys anymore, as he wanted to focus his energy on just 4-5 close friends who were ‘easy’ to be around.
4. Add in some supports
When kids are struggling in the playground it can be a blip, that passes in a day or two or a sign there is more going on. Either way it can make our kids feel a bit unsure about going to school while they are struggling with friends.
This is when a bit of support can help. One of the best things we can do is set up a couple of playdates. Asking kids who they are most interested in having some time with outside of school and setting that up can be helpful. You can also arrange to meet a friend at the gate and walk in together.
It’s also a great idea to encourage friendships outside of school with neighbours or cousins. These external friendships can be free of the drama at school and remind your kid they do have other friends which builds confidence.
Sometimes just having one kid in your child’s corner can help them navigate struggles.
5. Intervene when needed
Sometimes kids need us to intervene to support them.
If things have been going on for more than a week, your child is really distressed, struggling with sleeping or eating, if they no longer want to go to school or if there is a pattern of targeted bullying where there is a power imbalance … kids need us to take action.
It’s always best to start with the teacher. Your child’s teacher will often have a good picture of all the kids and can provide some insights as to what might help. They can keep an eye out, move your child’s seat in class and set them up with friends that might work better for them.
If your teacher suggests that your child needs some help reading social cues or with regulating emotions, it’s important to listen. When this happens the best place to start can be with your GP, or a great Occupational Therapist. There are also some good social skills courses that run through school holidays that can help your child in this area.
When there is bullying there needs to be a formal plan put in place with the school to stop the behaviour from happening. If action isn’t being taken by your child’s teacher it’s important to escalate this up the chain at the school.
Finally, if your child is having a hard time at school, I think the most important thing we can do is more sure that home is a safe base. In tough times kids need more hugs, more connection, their favourite meal, and a bit of understanding as they struggle with emotions.
We can’t control every experience our kids have in the outside world, but we can make sure that no matter what kind of day they’ve had, that at home they are lovable and worthy of love.
Connected Parenting founder Gen Muir is a parent educator, author, obstetric social worker and mother of four boys. She is passionate about helping families to connect and thrive amid the many challenges of modern parenting.
Gen has a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) from UNSW and a Graduate Diploma in Grief and Bereavement Counselling. She is also a qualified Circle of Security and Tuning into Kids facilitator.
Her recent book, Big People, Little Feelings (2024), and her co-hosted podcast, Beyond the Chaos, provide valuable resources for those working with or raising children.
Gen has appeared on Sunrise, The Today Show, The Morning Show, The Project, 2Day FM and ABC and is a spokesperson for LEGO DUPLO.
