A person is largely formed by the environment. Friends can affect his life principles, behavior and much more. Naturally, parents are worried about the question – with whom is their child. And if he has not yet found a friend, then how to help him in this? How to teach to choose “your” people and not lose connection with them?
How to help parents find friends and maintain friendly relations? This is discussed by a career consultant and expert in the field of education Marty Nemko.
Ask questions
Do not limit yourself to one: “What did you do at school today?”Children most often give an answer to it:” Yes nothing “.
Try asking the questions: “What did you like most today at school? And what did not like?”. Cloudly ask: “With whom do you like to communicate the most?»And then, without turning the dialogue into interrogation, try to find out something about this friend or girlfriend:“ Why do you like to communicate with him/her?”If you like the answer, suggest:“ Why don’t you invite Max to our house or go with him somewhere together after classes or on weekends?”
If the child says that most in the new friend he likes that he is “cool”, try to find out what this word means. Friendly? It is easy to communicate with him? Likes to do the same as your child? Or he threw the firecracker into the squirrel?
If your child made friends with someone that you liked, but have not mentioned him for a long time, ask: “How is Max there? You have not talked about him for a long time and did not invite you to visit. You are communcating?»Sometimes children just need a reminder.
And if they quarreled, we can come up with how to make peace. For example, if your child told Max something offensive, you can invite him to apologize.
If the child has no friends
Some children prefer to spend most of the free time alone – read, watch TV, listen to music, scream on the guitar, play computer games or look out the window. The pressure of parents who want them to communicate more, causes such children only protest.
But if it seems to you that your child still wants to make friends, ask him about it. The answer is affirmative? Ask who exactly he would like to be friends with: perhaps this is a neighbor, a classmate or a child with whom they go to a circle after school. Invite your child to invite this boy or a girl home or to do something together-for example, play at a break.
Marty Nemko shares: when he was small, he had only one close friend (though they are still, after 63 years, the best friends). Other children almost never offered him to play together and did not invite him
to visit.
Later he realized that perhaps at least this was partly due to the fact that he loved to boast of his knowledge – for example, he corrected other children tirelessly. He is sorry that his parents did not pay more attention to how he talked with his peers. If he understood what was the problem, he would be less worried about.