Childhood friendship and problems of communication with friends

Being a parent is hard work that moms and dads do, often without special skills and training. And if you successfully manage to cope with the problems of small children that arise in the family circle, then keep your sanity and respond correctly to the child's experiences, for example, due to the lack of friends in kindergarten, on the street, or at school, sometimes might be challenging.

So, for most parents, the life of their child seems successful and happy when a son or daughter is in a circle of friends and communicates closely with them. But as soon as you hear the phrases “why no one wants to be friends with me”, “I won't go outside”, a feeling of helplessness and despair arises, anger at other children, their parents and your child, up to self-accusations. After all, a kindergarten or school company is a simplified model of society and it works out the skill of relationships with others.

At the same time, before drawing conclusions and taking active actions, it is worthy to understand what the child means in the concept of "friendship", try to understand why he cannot take the desired position in the children's team, find a friend and/or maintain relations with him. And the solution to this issue requires great delicacy.

What is friendship?

There are a lot of definitions for this word. But if we generalize them and apply them to the relationship between children, then friendship is a close and voluntary relationship that is a source of emotional support and empathy for a child. For the first time, an interest in contact with other children arises in a 2-3-year-old child who would rather share a scoop and a bucket with a boy or girl he knows than with an unknown one who gives a toy car and a doll to another kid, rather than an adult.

As they get older, children of 3–6 years old will be friends with those who offer to play with their toys, do not cry, and do not fight. And since almost a third of preschoolers are friends with someone, the word “friend” is firmly fixed in the children's dictionary at the age of 3-5. Friendship for a 3–6-year-old child is an opportunity to visit, play together, have fun, protect from offenders and feel sorry for a friend, as well as forgive and apologize to a friend.

At the age of 6–10, learning is of great importance for children. Younger schoolchildren are more likely to be friends with loyal and quick-witted peers who share school supplies and are of the same sex as them. Friendship is rather perceived by schoolchildren as mutually beneficial cooperation that does not require understanding and acceptance of the interests of their friend.

At the beginning of adolescence 11-14 years old, a friend is likely to be someone with whom you can share your most intimate secret and who can keep it, who can defend the interests of classmates in disputes with teachers. During this period, a teenager is most susceptible to the influence of the group and its values; he is panicky afraid of losing popularity among his peers. Therefore, to maintain the friendship, both girls and boys need fashionable youth attributes, such as a computer or roller skates. Moreover, the point is not in the things themselves, but in the possibility of participating on an equal basis with others in common fun and discussions. Note that the real friendship of adolescents is a very complex and controversial phenomenon.

The desire to have faithful friends and their presence at the age of 15-18 acquires special value for boys and girls. The friend must be able to give and receive help, remain loyal, and show compassionate understanding. Thanks to friendly relationships, a teenager is established as a person, strengthens his position in the adult world, participates in a kind of psychotherapeutic session, and receives emotional support.

Parents Responsibility

Even though the features of children's friendship have been studied deeply enough, parents should always take into account that each child is formed in its way. This is due not only to the properties of the nervous system, temperament but also to the conditions of development, which give uniqueness to the age-related manifestations common to all. However, at any age, from 3-4 years old, the importance of contacts with friends is invaluable for a child.

Therefore, it is the parents who must take responsibility and take active action if the child:

• complains about the lack of friends and the unwillingness of peers to communicate with him;
• does not tell anything about classmates and friends whom he met, for example, on the street or in the sports section;
• does not want to call anyone, invite him to visit or no one calls him or invites him to his place;
• all-day alone doing something at home (reading, playing computer games, watching TV, etc.).

Before intervening in a situation and helping a child solve a problem, parents should as soon as possible understand the causes of this disharmony. Psychologists have long noticed that the better a child communicates with his parents, the easier it is for him to find a common language with his friends.

A child's problems with acquiring friends can also arise in connection with personal (increased emotionality, isolation, and shyness) and external features.

The reason that a child cannot find a friend or maintain a relationship with him is often associated with the fact that modern children often play alone and often with a computer. As a result, both boys and girls do not know simple ways to get to know each other, they cannot show complicity and empathy, express support for their friend, which, together with the “inability” to speak with peers in their language, leads to the rejection of the child from the peers.

It should be noted that the child and his parents are not always to blame for the fact that certain children cannot find a friend in a new team. Sometimes the mechanisms of mutual sympathy and antipathies, which are still poorly studied by psychologists, work. So, some children are extremely attractive to their peers, while others, no worse than them, are not. Some experts suggest that selectivity is based on the ability of in-demand children to maximize the social needs of their peers.

Having determined the cause of the problem, it is necessary to calmly and unobtrusively begin to correct the situation.

Your steps:

1. Give the child the opportunity to communicate with friends and his peers. For example, to get interested in classes in circles or sections, to visit families with children, to invite neighbors, to arrange children's parties.
2. Provide children with the opportunity to act independently, to show initiative, and their abilities.
3. Help the child to put up with friends and strive to learn as much as possible about them.
4. Try to spend quality time with your child, for example, play, have fun.
5. Teach a child to openly and calmly express his own opinion, to prove it, without raising his voice, without hysterics and offenses.

Conclusion

Initially, a child who is upset and confronted with something unfamiliar, unexpected, and frightening due to a lack of friends needs emotional support. Often, each parent does what he can, because no one has an ideal solution.

It is important for a son or daughter of any age to feel that a loving adult is ready to listen to him, recognizes him as a trustworthy person, shares his grief, and is ready to help and support. “I see you are sad (angry, afraid, offended). You would like your relationship with the guys in the class to develop differently. "

It will help the child to establish relationships with other children and systematic receptions at the home of parents' friends, conversations with the son or daughter on various topics. For example, conversations about childhood friends of mom and dad: how they met, how they were friends, what they played, what tricks they did, and even how they quarreled and made peace. Thanks to such stories, you can show your child without preaching that being friends is great.