Good evening, friends of the playground
Small children love other small children. There seems to be an innate solidarity between members of the same generation. As though they were thinking: “Ah, finally, another human who isn’t twelve times my size and sounds genuinely sincere when they say goo-goo.” If the other child is just a little older, admiration becomes a full-blown passion. “I saw him pick up a stone and put it in his pocket. Without eating it. Genius.”
And yet… For every adorable “She’s my friend, she lent me her bike, I want to invite her to my birthday”, how many heartbreaking “She took my baaaaaall” or “He’s not my frieeeend any more”? Or, before language arrives, screams and slaps suddenly flying over a corner of the slide or an unfair division of sand cake?
Friendly enthusiasm is not enough. To navigate the twists and turns of relationships and land on Friendship without passing through Heartbreak, your child needs to develop some subtle skills.
The good news: research shows that you can help.
1. Teach them to manage negative emotions
A 2003 study identified three qualities shared by young children who could form and maintain friendships with the children around them:
- They are considerate.
- They express themselves well.
- They can control themselves.
That last point is easy to spot among very young children in the park. As long as they cannot accept someone touching THEIR toy without screaming, opportunities for friendship remain limited.
Various studies have found that a helpful way to manage children’s selfish and aggressive impulses is to respond compassionately to emotional explosions and look together for solutions to the problem behind the outburst.
Progress is not instantaneous, of course. But have faith in the research: this child will eventually calm down.
2. Practise reading other people’s feelings
Managing your own feelings is one thing. You also need to recognise someone else’s state of mind. “That child is glaring at me when I add grass to his stone soup. Perhaps he doesn’t like people changing his recipe.”
You might think this is innate, or comes naturally. But experiments show that children’s empathy can improve, even at a very young age. Several exercises are recommended:
- Encourage your child to consider the context. A facial expression is only part of the available information. Thinking about someone’s situation helps a child understand that this is not simply about reading a face, but imagining what is going on in another person’s mind.
- Talk about body language as well as facial expressions. Describing and acting out the postures associated with different emotions gives children a wider range of signals to notice.
- Play at recognising emotions. Looking at photographs and naming the people’s feelings is already useful practice. You can also act out an emotion for someone to guess. Or start with a photographed—or acted-out—emotion and invent reasons why the person might feel that way.
3. Teach the basics of conversation
“I can control myself. I understand other people. Fine. But what on earth am I going to say to them?”
Fred Frankel, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, has studied the workings—and sticking points—of childhood friendship in depth. Here are his recommendations for friendly exchanges of information:
- Start by talking about likes and dislikes. “I love the swings.” “I don’t like rain.” In adolescence, this becomes “What music do you listen to?”
- Do not monopolise the conversation. Answer the question being discussed, then give the other person a chance to respond. Or ask them a new question.
- Do not act like an interviewer. Listening is essential, but you also need to share information about yourself for the exchange to qualify as a conversation.
4. Coach them through complicated social situations
Picture the scene. You arrive at the park. Your child spots a group of unfamiliar children playing and seems tempted to join them. What should you do? Simply encourage them to go for it, or help them think through a plan?
Researchers have observed that good coaching can benefit children’s social skills. These are the kinds of helpful suggestions they noted:
- Before joining in, watch what they are playing. How could you fit in? If they are playing restaurants, for example, you could offer to be a new customer.
- Do not disrupt what they are doing. Do not criticise, or try to make them play something else.
- If the other children do not want to play with you, do not insist. Let it go and find something else to do.
5. Avoid competitive activities
Competitive activities probably have benefits, but encouraging “friendly” behaviour is not their strongest suit. Cooperative activities, by contrast, have a demonstrated positive effect on participants’ social interactions. Children who are usually rather prickly become more approachable. And the more easy-going children become more accepting of the pricklier ones’ rough edges.
If your child seems to struggle to make friends, “Let’s sign them up for rugby” may not be the best solution.
This is worth remembering whenever young children get together with friends or family: for everyone’s comfort, including theirs, plan non-competitive activities, hide the toy guns and swords, and put away toys your children are not yet ready to lend.
Photo: Yannis Papanastasopoulos.