Friendship Skills: Helping Kids to Master the Art of Being a Friend

Parents, teachers, and other caring adults have an important role to play in helping children to acquire friendship skills. In her most recent column for CBC Radio, weekend parenting columnist Ann Douglas spoke to parent Amanda DeGrace about ways to help kids to master the art of being a friend.

Photo by Steven Libralon on Unsplash.

Friendship skills don’t necessarily come easily or happen naturally for every child. Odds are you know at least one child who is much more of a “social caterpillar” than a “social butterfly.” The good news is that parents, teachers, and other caring adults have an important role to play when it comes to helping kids to make sense of the unwritten rules of friendship. Here’s what you can do to encourage that all-important learning.

Ensure that kids have plenty of opportunities to work on their friendship skills.

The best way to help kids to understand what it means to be a friend is by giving them plenty of opportunities to practice those skills. That means ensuring that they have plenty of opportunity to play with other kids, starting when they’re still really little. Of course, play dates don’t just happen. Someone has to make them happen. And more often than not, that “someone” is mom or dad!

The good news is that eventually, parents are able to take a bit of a step back when it comes to orchestrating these kinds of play opportunities. This is something I was speaking with Amanda DeGrace about during a recent interview for CBC Radio. She’s the mother of three children, ages 4, 7, and 9, and she told me that she likes to encourage her children to take the lead when it comes to making weekend plans with their friends. She then supports those efforts by providing logistical support in the form of transportation — a necessity, given that her family lives out in the country. Yes, it can be a lot of work, but, it’s definitely worth the effort. She wants her children to have the chance to play with their friends and to work on their friendship skills.

Help kids to understand that it’s normal for friendships to hit road bumps from time to time.

Kids need to know that these friendship road bumps are inevitable. It’s not a case of if they’re going to happen but when they’re going to happen. Human beings make mistakes! We’re going to say and do things we regret from time to time. We don’t have to be perfect and neither do our friends, but we do have to be willing to do the hard work of repairing the relationship when something goes wrong.

One of the ways you can support kids through the process of dealing with one of these friendship road bumps is by helping them to figure out what went wrong and what it’s going to take to get the relationship back on track. Your child might find it helpful to role play some friendship repair scenarios with you. They could practice talking with a friend about what happened, expressing regret for their own actions, and coming up with a game plan for handling things a little differently next time.

The benefits of supporting a child’s social-emotional learning in this way can be huge. Instead of feeling like they should give up on a friendship the first time they encounter one of these friendship road bumps, they will be more inclined to think about what went wrong and to look for an opportunity to repair the relationship. And they won’t be looking to you to rush in and fix things: they’ll feel confident in their own ability to get the relationship back on track. That’s huge!

Resist the temptation to try to handpick your child’s friends.

Sometimes your child decides to strike up a friendship with a child you really dislike. In this situation, it can be helpful to take a step back to try to get a handle on what’s actually going on. Is this simply a matter of your child’s friend rubbing you the wrong way or is there actually cause for concern when it comes to this friendship? This is something else I was speaking with Amanda DeGrace about during our recent conversation for CBC Radio. She told me that, in situations like this, she likes to ask herself a few key questions: “Is the friendship mutually beneficial?” “Are the children showing empathy toward each other?” “Are they demonstrating kindness?”

In this case, acceptance is key: acceptance of this other child and acceptance of your own child’s right to make her own friendship choices. Sure, if your child’s friend is consistently domineering or deliberately unkind, obviously you’ll want to raise your concerns with your child. But be aware that you’re walking a bit of a fine line. If you criticize this friend in a way that seems harsh and unfair to your child, you risk having your child rush to the friend’s defence — and that might only serve to cement the bonds of friendship! Likewise, trying to forbid your child from being friends with this child may only serve to drive the friendship underground. All that said, sometimes you have to intervene because this friendship is causing real harm to your child. But more often than not, you simply find yourself taking a step back, and keeping your fingers crossed that maybe, just maybe, the friendship will eventually run its course.

Ensure that kids get the message that it’s okay to walk away from a really bad friendship.

Not all friendships can be saved nor is every friendship even worth saving. When this kind of situation arises, it’s really important to validate your child’s decision to end an unhealthy relationship. Maybe this wasn’t the first time this friend lashed out in a really hurtful way. Maybe trust has been destroyed and there simply isn’t a way to come back from that kind of betrayal. Your child needs to know that it’s okay to walk away from a really bad friendship. In fact, it’s more than okay. It’s essential.

Accept the fact that friendship skills can be tougher for some kids to master than others, but hold on to hope that this will happen eventually for most kids.

It does take some children a little longer than others to master friendship skills — and that’s okay. Childhood doesn’t have to be a race! I’m thinking of kids who are anxious or impulsive or maybe a bit more aggressive than their peers; or who are simply not quite as socially savvy as other kids. Not every child understands intuitively what it means to have or be a friend. They may need a little extra help from a parents, teachers, and other experts in order to understand how to fit the various pieces in the friendship puzzle together.

The good news is that many kids who start out with a significant social skills deficit do end up mastering the art of being a friend. It may not happen easily. It may not happen overnight. But it can and does happen. That social caterpillar may yet become a social butterfly.

This blog post was based was based on my most recent weekend parenting column for CBC Radio.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids and Parenting Through the Storm. She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio.

My Citizen Mandate Letter

Ann Douglas has written herself a “citizen mandate letter” to spell out her personal action plan for the next session of Parliament.

I just finished writing myself a "citizen mandate letter" -- my own personal action plan for the next session of Parliament, which is scheduled to begin on December 5.

It’s kind of like one of those “minister mandate letters” that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote to each of his cabinet ministers shortly after he came to power back in 2015, except, in this case, it’s a letter I wrote to myself.

I wrote this letter to remind myself that the actions citizens take in between elections are even more important than the actions they take during elections. I want the next government to make progress on three complex and interconnected issues -- the climate crisis, electoral reform, and income inequality. My plan spells out what I, as an ordinary citizen, can do to encourage them to make progress on all three fronts.

I’m sharing this letter with you in the hope that you will decide to write a similar letter to yourself. And if you do decide to write one, I'd love it if you'd share that letter with me. That way, we can inspire one another to turn our plans into action. I’ll be reporting back to you about my progress and I’d love to hear what you’re working on, too.

- Ann

Citizen Mandate Letter for Ann Douglas

During the upcoming session of session of Parliament, I will be doing everything in my power as a citizen to encourage our elected officials to make progress on the following three issues:

1. the climate crisis,

2. electoral reform, and

3. income inequality.

I am focusing my efforts on these three issues because, if we can make progress in these three areas, we’ll have the income needed to invested in other critically needed programs and services and to fund the transition to a greener and more just economy and we’ll have a voting system that ensures that everyone’s voice is heard (something that is critical for the health of our democracy).

I am highly motivated to take action on each of these issues because I feel like we’ve reached a make-it-or-break it point for our country and our world; and I really want us to make it. If we don’t make progress on these three issues, life is going to get a whole lot worse for a whole bunch of people — and likely irreversibly worse. Besides, it feels so much better to be actively trying to make things better as opposed to merely standing on the sidelines feeling hopeless. When it comes to a choice between hope and cynicism, I will choose hope every time.

Here are the specific actions that I commit to taking throughout the duration of the next Parliament.

I will request a face-to-face meeting with my Member of Parliament. I will plan to meet with her face-to-face to explain why it is so important to make progress on these three key issues. When I meet with her, I will make the case for taking action and, more specifically, I will spell out what her government—the ruling party—stands to gain by demonstrating leadership on all three fronts.

I will also write to other Members of Parliament. Cabinet Ministers, Committee Members, and other Parliamentarians who are working on these all-important issues need to hear from ordinary Canadians from across the country. I will ensure that my voice is one of the voices that is heard.

I will have ongoing conversations with my fellow citizens. I will connect with other people I know who are already working on my three top issues. But, in addition to that, I will make a conscious effort to connect with voters who felt that they had little choice but to vote strategically in the last election and who are still feeling angry and discouraged as a result. I want to help them to see that they still have an opportunity to make their voices heard in all kinds of powerful and far-reaching ways and that the time for action is now—before we find ourselves caught up in yet another voting cycle when they might once again be forced to perform electoral gymnastics in an attempt to make a badly broken voting system work.

I will continue to support the work being done by grassroots groups and non-profit organizations that are working to make progress on the issues that matter most to me. I’ll volunteer my time, make financial donations, and look for random opportunities to shine a spotlight on the important work they are doing.

I will continue to donate my time, energy, and money to the political party that is most in synch with my values. I want that political party to be in the strongest possible position, both financially and in terms of people power, by the time the next election is called. The only way that’s going to happen is if I support those efforts right now.

Our electoral system isn’t working nearly as well as it should in terms of representing the viewpoints of ordinary citizens. That means that we as individual citizens have to work harder—a whole lot harder—to ensure that our voices are heard. But it doesn’t have to be impossibly hard. Writing a few letters, making a few donations, scheduling a few meetings, and supporting the efforts of our fellow citizens to do likewise has the potential to make a big difference. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get started: to find tiny ways to make a big difference together.

Winter parenting advice from your friendly neighbourhood squirrel

The days are getting shorter, the weather is getting colder, and the snow shovels have already had their first workout in many parts of the country. That means it’s time to start wrapping our heads around the fact that winter is just around the corner. And while there’s much to love about this most Canadian of seasons, it’s not without its challenges: challenges that can feel particularly daunting if you happen to be a parent.

For advice on making it through another long Canadian winter, I decided to turn to an unlikely source: your friendly neighbourhood squirrel. Because, as it turns out, squirrels have a lot to teach us humans about getting ready for and making it through winter. What follows are three squirrel-proven strategies.

Anticipate and plan for what lies ahead

Squirrels are great at planning ahead. Each summer, they squirrel away three years' worth of food. That’s even more food than you managed to stash into your grocery cart on your last trip to Costco! But I’m not just talking about practical preparations, although, of course, they’re important important, too. After all, no one wants to be caught without emergency supplies on hand when the power goes out for hours or days at a time. But it’s just as important to be psychologically prepared for the onset of winter, which means anticipating the types of psychological challenges that are pretty much baked into the experience of winter here in Canada. You know what I’m talking about: colder weather, shorter days, and the emotional rollercoaster ride that is the holiday season. And that’s just for starters….

The best way to manage these challenges is by anticipating and planning for them, as opposed to merely allowing them to mentally sideswipe you and catch you off guard. At this time of year, it can be helpful to spend a little time thinking about

(a) how you are likely to feel if you do nothing to make things better this winter; and

(b) how you would actually like to feel.

Then it’s simply a matter of identifying a series of strategies for pivoting from A to B and then committing to work that plan.

Resist the temptation to go into full-blown hibernation mode as a family

While squirrels are big fans of staying indoors in particularly harsh weather, they make a point of heading outdoors when they can. It’s a strategy you might want to apply to your own life this winter. Sure, you want to spend some time hibernating indoors, reading books, and/or watching movies while you’re cuddled up on the couch with your nearest and dearest. But you don’t want this to be your sole activity for months at a time.

For the sake of your mental health and your physical health, it’s important to try to spend time outdoors on a regular basis. You’ll be more likely to find this enjoyable as opposed to something you dread if you have a game plan for staying cosy and warm. We humans might not have the ability to grow winter hair or crank up our metabolism to stay warm in all kinds of weather, like squirrels do, but we can buy winter clothing and boots to help us to stay toasty warm while we’re spending time outdoors.

Help other parents and kids to make it through this tough time of year

Squirrels don’t just look out for their own offspring. They look out for other squirrels’ offspring, too. Of course, they aren’t totally altruistic. They tend to adopt the offspring of close relatives as opposed to the offspring of random strangers, but, hey, it’s a start. You can carry things one step further because you have a great capacity for empathy than, say, your average squirrel. You can look for opportunities to make life a little easier or better for other parents and kids you know. That might mean inviting a neighbourhood kid to go sledding with your family or playing board games with your next door neighbours or something else entirely. What it all comes down to is doing whatever else it takes to get through the cold, dark days of winter together.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids. She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio.

Book Pairing #3: If you loved Happy Parents, Happy Kids, you'll love Worry

If you’ve got kids, you’ve got worries. That’s pretty much how this parenting thing works. But something about raising kids these days feels different. Everything about parenting feels incredibly high stakes. This is something I write about at length in my most recent book, Happy Parents, Happy Kids. And it’s an issue that author Jessica Westhead tackles as well in her latest novel, Worry.

Worry is a thoughtful and multilayered book that explores the many factors—both personal and societal—that might cause a parent to retreat to a place of worry. Initially, the reader isn’t quite sure why the main character, Ruth, seems to spends so much time worrying about her four-year-old daughter, but, over time, those worries begin to make sense. At the start of the novel, we sense that something is wrong, but it takes us a long time to figure out what that “something” is (almost as long as it takes Ruth to acknowledge that “something” to herself). The result is a psychologically complex and highly captivating novel that insists that you keep turning pages as a way to relieve your own worry about what’s going to happen to these characters. Bottom line? If the sections of Happy Parents, Happy Kids that explore why anxiety is pretty much baked into the experience of modern parenting resonated with you, you’ll want to pick up a copy of Worry, too.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Jessica Westhead about her book. What follows are the highlights of that conversation: my questions and Jessica’s answers.

Q. Parents are often ridiculed for being “too anxious” and yet sometimes anxiety is a perfectly rational response to the state of the world and/or an individual parent’s life experience. What would you say to parents like Ruth who are harshly criticized or judged for worrying “too much" about their kids?

A: I love this question, because it does bother me when Ruth’s worrying is written off as over-the-top. You make such a good point—we live in a world right now that is full of things to worry about. People are becoming (I think/hope) more aware of the need for social justice, and positive change is happening there, slowly, but the backlash from “mainstream” (AKA white, straight, mostly middle-class and middle-aged) society that keeps building as historically marginalized groups of people are gaining (a tiny bit of) ground is very frightening. Climate change, of course, is the most terrifying thing of all, and we all have to do this elaborate compartmentalization dance just to go about our lives with some semblance of calm in the face of it. Meanwhile, go to any toy store and you see more and more of these awful “surprise” toy abominations wrapped in layer upon layer of non-recyclable plastic, and these are the only things my daughter and her friends want. The waste makes me sick to my stomach. Add all of that to whatever other worries each parent carries around with them because of their own individual traumas, and it’s a wonder that we’re not all just curled up in the fetal position, covering our eyes and ears and humming desperately to ourselves. So yes, I empathize with Ruth. I’m an anxious parent myself. I would tell parents like us that’s it okay to worry; that we shouldn’t add “worrying about worrying too much” to the pile. BUT we also need to think about how our kids will perceive our anxiety, and how they’ll absorb it from us. I want my daughter to fill up with love for herself and the world and the people in it, and there won’t be room enough for that if she’s too full of (my) worry. So far, I think I’m doing an okay job of staying hopeful and focusing on the good things. Gratitude helps with that enormously—I’m so thankful for my family and our friends and the communities I’m part of, and the opportunities I’ve had—and being grateful gives me the energy to keep moving forward. And to be kind to myself when the worries creep in, as they always do.

Q. The sections of your book that were anchored in a character’s earlier experiences of loss really resonated with me. (I’m deliberately being vague because I don’t want to spoil any parts of your book for other readers.) Could you talk a little bit about how earlier experiences of loss can amplify feelings of anxiety and why you felt it was important to address this in your book?

A: I mentioned compartmentalization in my first answer, and I’ll return to that idea here. Ruth is also doing her own elaborate dance to escape painful memories by keeping them locked away. I wrote the odd-numbered flashback chapters in Worry as a way to show the separateness of those memories, which gradually seep back into Ruth’s awareness until she can’t hide from them anymore. Being out of her element and on Stef’s turf (Stef and her husband Sammy own the cottage where the story is set) makes Ruth feel very vulnerable, and at first she has her guard up. But then Stef wears her down, and Ruth finds relief in the permissiveness of “Cottage Time”—where it’s acceptable and even expected for the adults to forgo responsibility and embrace relaxation (aided by lots of drinking). With this freedom from her regular routine, there's more opportunity for self-reflection, and Ruth’s thoughts end up drifting back to the past events (and losses) that shaped her present worries. I had four early miscarriages before giving birth to my daughter, and I know many women who had similar experiences or went through much more traumatic pregnancy losses. Some of them have children now, and some of them don’t. When my daughter was younger, I often wondered what life would’ve been like if we hadn’t had the good fortune of having her. Worry grew out of that wondering.

Q. What was the hardest thing for you about writing this book and what has been the most rewarding thing?

A: I wrote the first draft of Worry ridiculously quickly. Once I got going, it was almost as if I couldn’t NOT write it if I tried. I’ve had entire scenes from short stories arrive in my brain fully formed before, but this experience was something else entirely, and such a gift. For those feverish few months, I was waking up at all hours of the night and writing for long stretches of time in my notebook by flashlight, watching my pen fly across the pages as the words poured out of me. In the morning, I’d have all this new material and then I’d just keep going. From the very beginning, when the idea for Worry first came to me, I knew that the story would take place at a cottage, I knew who all the characters were, and I knew that the basic storyline had to do with my protagonist’s worry for her only child. So I was able to write a plot outline early on, which gave me extra momentum because I could progress scene by scene (even if I didn’t know how it was all going to end). So that was absolutely the most rewarding part. The hardest part was when the rose-coloured glasses fell off, after I'd finished that draft in an exultant haze, and I realized it wasn’t remotely close to being done. The next few years were a slog. The ending was the biggest problem—it never felt right, even after two major revisions. After the euphoric ease of the first draft, I was disillusioned and disheartened by how much I had to struggle with the rewrites, and still couldn’t figure out how to fix what was wrong. Fortunately, I have a brilliant agent (Sam Hiyate with The Rights Factory) and several incredibly supportive and perceptive first readers who had my back. With their feedback (on multiple drafts), and lots of walking around and letting my mind wander around the story, along with the encouragement of Patrick Crean (who’d seen a spark in a too-early draft of Worry that we'd submitted to publishers much too soon, but fortunately it caught Patrick's attention and that’s how I ended up at HarperCollins), I was able to re-envision the story and make the connections that led to the “final” draft that I re-submitted to HarperCollins, and it was accepted. Ultimately, it was decided that Jennifer Lambert would be my editor, since we’re about the same age and have kids about the same age, so she would (and did!) have a more intimate understanding of Ruth’s journey as a mother, as well as the intricacies of female friendships. Now that Worry is out in the world, the enthusiastic reception from readers that I’ve seen so far has been so incredibly gratifying. I’m happy that I did the work to tell this story the way I really wanted to tell it.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids. She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio.

Book Pairing #2: If you loved Happy Parents, Happy Kids, you'll love Change Your World

I’m back with another book pairing. (Yes, I know: that was quick! It’s because I have a huge backlog of books I’ve been meaning to blog about — and launching this new blog feature has inspired me to catch up on that backlog.)

Anyway, the second book I want to tell you about is Michael Ungar’s latest book: Change Your World: The Science of Resilience and the True Path to Success — a book that takes a deep dive into the science of resilience to identify the factors that actually allow people to thrive. (Spoiler alert: It’s not about hustling a little harder or being more motivated: it’s about being fortunate enough to grow up in an environment that is rich in opportunity.)

What I love about this book is that Ungar rejects the idea that success is something that is completely within our control as individuals and highlights instead the importance of broader, more systemic factors: what’s happening in our families, our community, and our world. Improving our personal circumstances becomes less about changing ourselves and more about joining forces with other people to make things better for all of us, in other words. As Ungar explains: “We need a clean break from the mindset that places the responsibility for self-actualization on an individual’s shoulders—it is a misread of what the science tells us about what makes us successful. If we want to understand why some people succeed and others do not, and if we want to succeed ourselves, we will need far fewer motivational gurus and much more help from the people in our families, our workplaces, our communities, and our society.”

Bottom line? It’s less about do-it-yourself and more about do-it-with-others.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Michael Ungar about his book. We talked about the importance of tapping into support from the village (a key theme in my most recent book, Happy Parents, Happy Kids) and helping our children to do the same. What follows are a series of questions (mine) and answers (his).

Q: Why are North Americans so drawn to self-help solutions? Why is it so hard for us to accept and embrace (a) our interconnectedness to other humans and (b) the impact of broader environments on our lives?

A: There is an overwhelming myth of the rugged individual that infiltrates every part of our social world. It seems to blind us to the real sources of our resilience: our relationships, our communities, our institutions. While I understand the need to be self-directed and motivated, the science of resilience tells us that striving in a world that offers us few opportunities to use our talents or succeed simply creates frustration and burnout (allostatic load). Our success depends on the world around us changing to meet our needs, or at least making opportunities available for us to use.

Q: Why is it important for children/youth to grow up understanding that they are part of something much bigger than themselves — a family, a community, humanity?

A: A child who understands that she is part of a larger system is a child who will have more of the building blocks for resilience. These include a sense of accountability to others, a sense of belonging, and a sense of one’s cultural heritage. So much of who we are, and our sense of wellbeing, hinges on our immersion in networks of relationships. Even in school, the quality of our relationship with our teacher can profoundly influence academic outcomes, especially for more vulnerable/challenged students.

Q: What is your best advice to parents in terms of how to foster this awareness?

A: First, model being part of a community, an extended family, a workplace. Then don’t be shy about insisting children become part of these relationships too. Expect them to eat with adults. Expect them to travel with you to places you are interested in. When our children see us navigating our way through the world, and finding ways to feel valued, they learn how to do the same. I just don’t understand why we let children become isolated, or insist that every activity is centred on their needs. This does nothing but create narcissism, when what we want is our children to feel a part of networks of people who rely upon them.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids. She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio.