The Power of Friendship |
Spending recesses and lunch hours alone day after day has been utterly painful and disastrous for her self-esteem and happiness.
From outright exclusion to cliques and snubs, school has been torture for the slightly-overweight, acne-prone Toronto-area student.
“I don’t want to go back to school,” says Sara, who hasn’t a single friend there.
The rejection is heartbreaking for her mother, who exhausted avenues seeking support and guidance for her daughter.
“It’s been brutal — kids can be so mean.”
Sara is not alone, according to Michele Borba, an award-winning educator. It’s a vicious social jungle out there and kids need help navigating the tumultuous waters of social development and friendship.
“Every bit of research says today’s kids are far more cruel and at younger ages. We see this in the rise of bullying as well as aggression. Tough problems kids once faced years back in high school are now in middle grades down to elementary, including drinking, drugs, peer pressure, etc.
“Enough is enough! Kids are being hurt and those bad behaviours are being learned,” says Borba, who has written a hands-on guide for parents and teachers to help kids survive the teasing, rejection, cliques, peer pressure and bullying, as well as help other children who lack proper social skills, including being too bossy, too competitive or argumentative.
Her book Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me (Wiley) addresses the top 25 friendship problems and how to solve them.
Borba, who surveyed 5,000 parents and teachers to pinpoint their biggest concerns about friendship, says it’s imperative parents recognize the gradual erosion of social skills that build friendships and, in turn, help strengthen their behaviour and social development so they don’t pick on others — and they don’t get picked on.
While kids are capable of making their own friends, she says the goal is not to interfere but gently guide.
It’s not a sign of micromanaging, stresses Borba. “The goal is for parents to be just more intentional: Tune into their kids’ social development, identify just one new skill that might help their child at that point in their life, and teach the skill by modelling it or reinforcing it.”
She says that children’s lives have become so scheduled with academic, cognitive-stimulation that social development is actually taking a nose-dive in our kids’ lives — skills such as sharing, taking turns, learning to negotiate, solving problems and empathizing are backsliding.
According to Hamilton, Ont., counsellor Heidi Cowie, “parents are our primary role models. Children model, imitate, and incorporate the same behaviours they see from their parents into their relationships.
Parents need to be aware if their child is having trouble making or keeping friends and start to identify where the child needs extra help.”
Don’t underestimate the power of friendships: “Everybody needs friends — especially kids. How many friends our kids have isn’t the issue. What’s important is making sure they have at least one or two good ‘true blue’ buddies.”
Friendships play a much more significant role in our children’s happiness, health and self-esteem than recognized before, she says.
“Friendships are also how our children acquire critical life skills they need to learn to get along in the world,” she says, adding that children lacking friendship skills are more likely to be victims of bullying and depression.
Rejection is highly correlated with mental health problems down the road.
“In fact, research with kindergarten teachers finds that a child’s ability to get along with friends, empathize, and use self-control is a better predictor of school success than are knowledge of ABCs, etc.”
Meanwhile, Cowie adds, “these stages of cliques, fitting in and bossiness become non-issues when a child’s self-esteem and self-confidence is high. The want-to-fit-in versus the need-to-fit-in can mean that the person’s need for acceptance comes from outside rather than from inside.”
Friendship is always based on an equal and loyal relationship, says parenting expert Michele Borba. “It is not one-sided but instead involves two people who care about one another.”
Here are her friendship dos and don’ts:
DOS
Skills important for friendship making are:
1. Sharing/taking turns.
2. Empathy — tuning into the other person’s feelings;
identifying their feeling needs so you can act on them.
3. Introducing yourself to someone — learning how to join into
a group.
4. Listening.
5. Solving problems amicably (conflict resolution).
6. Compromising — learning to give and take, negotiate.
7. Encouraging another.
8. Knowing how to handle rejection.
9. Being assertive — standing up for yourself and standing
up to a bully.
10. Handling peer pressure — knowing how to say no.
DON'TS
Things that destroy friendship (not in any order — these are different depending on the age of the child):
1. Jealousy.
2. Self-serving or self-centred.
3. Not knowing how to solve a problem amicably.
4. Gossip, disloyalty.
5. Not sharing or taking turns — one-sidedness.
6. Lack of empathy.
7. Too competitive.
8. Bossy, dictatorial.
9. Not listening.
10. Quick tempers.
