My oldest daughter is six and a half years old, and over the years, I have found it fascinating to watch her interact with her friends. I woud give anything to be a fly on the wall, observing their dynamics, learning who is the Alpha Friend, keeping a tally of when they are bossy, or mean, or selfless.
One thing I didn’t expect was how challenging it would be to know when to intervene, and when to keep my mouth shut and let them navigate their own choppy waters of friendship. Sometimes it is so painful to listen to their conversations, overhearing them negotiate which roles they should play, cringing while they exchange awkward dialogue that borders (or not!) on being obnoxious. If I could, here are the pieces of advice I would love to impart to them, should they choose to hear me. (Apparently, the theme for this week is “Things I’d Like To Tell People, But Won’t.” Hmm. Back to the therapy couch, I guess.)
- Nobody likes the girl who threatens to go home every time she can’t have her way.
- Don’t always begin a conversation by sharing something special you have done or acquired. It’s bragging, and it puts people off. Every once in awhile, ask your friends about themselves.
- Wearing a swimsuit with high-heeled dress-up shoes makes you look like a streetwalker. Just sayin’.
- Stop bragging about being three months older than your friends, or crying because you are the last girl to turn seven. Someday it will be cool to be just a little bit younger than everybody else. As for right now- who really cares?
- Don’t exclude other girls, and learn to get good at playing in a group of three. I know it makes you feel secure to leave other girls out, but don’t. Remember how sad you feel when you are the one who is left out. When you are older, it will be in your best interest to include as many friends as you can, and people will like you more for making them feel welcome and important.
- Know when to tattle and when to shut up. It is important to learn when your friends are making really bad choices, or being unsafe, or keeping a secret they shouldn’t. You should always know that it is okay to do the right thing and share with your parents. But sometimes you just need to keep your mouth shut and let things go, or your friends are never going to share their secrets with you. I’m glad you told me that Penny uses the “F” word, but I really don’t give a crap about how many pieces of candy she had yesterday.
- Lower your voices, for the love of all that is holy! Both in pitch and in decibel.
- When offered a drink or snack by your friend’s mom, say thank you. Don’t complain or ask if there is something else you can have.
- Cruelty and one-up-manship are not cool. There is never any reason to say something with the specific intention of making another person feel bad. Unless they are a jerk. Just kidding. (Sort of.) Being mean may make you feel powerful and superior now, but there will come a time when people will like you less for those tendencies. It may take awhile, but eventually, other kids will not want to be around you if you are unkind.
- Be true to yourself. Just because someone else is doing something, wearing something, watching a certain TV show, or using words that our family doesn’t use, doesn’t mean that you have to do it. Listen to your instincts. There is a wise woman deep inside you, waiting to be born.
There are times when I cannot help but intervene, reminding them to use manners, or change the way they are speaking to one another, or even warn them that their playdate will end if they cannot treat each other more kindly. And sometimes I try to give my daughter a private “coaching session” on how to handle challenging friend dynamics. It is hard to know what sinks in. One thing is for certain- with two daughters, the friendship dynamics are only going to get more challenging from here on out.
Wonderful advice to your daughter and sounds a bit like advice my mom gave to me when I was younger and some of what I have now imparted to my own daughters. Being a mother to little girls sure has its moments, but I think we do have a enough experience and wisdom to try our best to make a difference. Definitely sounds like you are doing a great job, Stephanie!! 🙂
Thanks Janine! I’m trying!
Stephanie, I got confused for a second, were these rules for your kids or for blogging? Please consider: Everything I learned about blogging, I learned from my first grader.
From what I can tell of your online life you are socially graceful so I can only imagine that if you don’t tell them these rules, they will learn by your example.
Also, do you have a new layout for this? It looks great!
Ha! That is such a great point, Jean! The comparisons are kind of mind-boggling! Hmm, I sense a blog post coming on…
And, wow, thanks for a lovely compliment! No, I don’t have a new layout, but I totally screwed up my font earlier in the week and couldn’t fix it, and it looked like total crap, and I fixed it and now it looked nice again! So maybe that’s what you noticed!
My oldest is three and I see and hear so many things from her that are so much like me. Some are good traits of course but there are also others that I have spent a lot of time adjusting to try to make myself more compassionate and giving. I often want to jump in and share what I’ve learned with her, but there is a point when she must find her own way. Tricky business, girls. Your list fits great for us all.
Carisa! I’m so glad you stopped by! And great comment, chica. You are a wise lady. My oldest is so much like me it hurts.
wipes tears awya, yes I cried at this. Wonderful post and great advice. We need more moms to do this, kids need direction and for their parents to model how to be respectful and kind. Great job!
Aw, thanks so much Karen!
“…Learn to get good at playing in a group of three.”
I rest my case.
lol
I started off Kindergarden and 1st grade as a chatter box – totally a social butterfly. After Kindergarten, I went to a different school, after 1st grade, 5th grade and 8th grade. By the time I got to high school – the hardest of the transitions I was an introvert. I blame that on the “starting over” of fitting in. It was really hard. As it worked out with timing of when I had Christopher my husband is retired now and as long as we stay here Christopher will continue to go to school with his friends. Sad thing though is that some will probably leave him, because this is a military town. That said, I think staying put is a big deal. Anyway, that is an excellent list even for boys. The thing is you can teach them these things but unfortunately not to their friends. That group of three makes me tense.
Thanks for sharing that, Kenya. I think moving, and having friends move, can be a very formative experience for kids. Sometimes a good thing for developing resilience, but sometimes not great for confidence and security.
Oh my I wrote Kinder”garden” – where’s the edit button. LOL!
I think we all try to tell our daughters all those things. The problem is they listen about as well as we did. Hopefully they take away a few of the words of good advice. Mostly, I think, they have to learn so many things on their own.
Excellent advice, Stephanie. I particularly like the “know when to tattle and when to shut up.” A tattle tale drives me nuts as an adult, I can’t imagine how annoying s/he must be to other kids.
And now that my daughter can actually wear shoes with heels, the swimsuit-heels-streetwalker lesson is worth reinforcing 🙂
HA! Yeah… the high heels and swimsuits is cringe-worthy!
And the tattling makes me crazy… then again, I don’t want her NOT to share the bad stuff. Fine, fine line…
This was so terrific, Steph! It’s all part of the learning, for kids and for parents (moms especially). I remember all the years that I taught fifth and sixth grade and I’d be out at recess, watching girls learn to socialize. It was often painful to watch, and, like you, sometimes I’d intervene. It’s so hard to find the balance in kids’ social lives — when you believe so strongly that kids should learn to be independent and struggle on their own. At the same time, you know that sometimes an adult has to “coach” a kid about how to speak and interact with others. It seems like you’re doing a wonderful job!
Yes! It is so painful, and I’m sure sometimes I intervene when I shouldn’t, and also the opposite! Thanks for the vote of confidence!
What a wonderful post. I just read it to my mother as I was reading it and we both enjoyed immensely. I completely identify with not knowing when to step in and when to just let things unfold on their own, but it sounds like your approach is very methodical. Great job on everything, Steph, the post and the parenting 🙂
Hi, geat advice for a daughter. Enjoyed reading yor blog today. 🙂
Great advice! I found myself shaking my head and saying “yep yep!” I’m often the host mommy and I can hear very well through the hallway and listen in sometimes and I’ve heard some of the exact things! Especially, “I’m going home” when one gets frustrated. I don’t know which kid is saying it but since we ATE home I’m assuming it isn’t one of my own :)) haha
I think this must be a universal parenting experience, huh?
Oh my gosh…I was really painfully shy, too…I started to become less so in high school. I love your advice to your daughters and feel like it’s advice for ALL of us. Each piece of advice you give is both eloquently stated and smiley/tearjerky all at once. An ex-coworker of mine was a big bragger and I finally told him (after 4 years) – “you know, Rich (because his name was Rich), I don’t think any more of you because of your airplane or your house in the mountains so you can stop telling me about them – it feels like you’re bragging.” He never did it again. Go, me.
Go you, indeed!
I think it’s funny that we were both shy… just look at us now! 😉
And thanks for your lovely encouraging thoughts on this post… xoxo
How many things did I tell my boys and it go in one ear and out the other. You know much like it did when our moms told us those things..
Ugh, isn’t that the truth!
I need to read this to my seven year old. Such a great list and if only we could give our younger selves (and our kids) the perspective we have now. Have a great weekend!
I know… it’s a lost cause. (The advice, hopefully not the weekend…knock on wood…)
Beautiful. You are a great writer, and I’m not super loose with that compliment. (I’m loose in other ways, though, as is seen in my post today.)
That is such a great compliment, and it means a lot coming from a writer like you! Thanks so much for that- can’t wait to read your post now… hee hee…
Reading this brought me back to my childhood. It really is hard to be a girl, isn’t it? I’d hazard a guess boys don’t go through the same kind of turmoil girls do when it comes to friendships. I really loved this list and I’ll be saving it to share with my daughter when she’s a little older. 🙂
I’m sure there are completely different challenges with raising boys, and I bet a lot of it depends on what temperament your boy has. My brother was very sensitive and emotional, and he had a hell of a time. But I think in general the friendship navigation is more tumultuous with girls.
The saying “thank you” resonated with me. My 12 yo daughter had a friend over to spend the night recently. This friend said thank you a lot. And it was amazing how it leapt out at me. It made me realize that no one says thank you. And that is so important. Like this a lot. Just wait till she is 12. Then you will really want to be a fly on the wall.
Oh, I can only imagine! I think you are right- kids saying thank you seems like a big deal, and it makes me sad that it is sort of a rarity.
Wow Stephanie. I think I need to print this list out and tape it to my fridge! I have thought all of these things at one time or another and really tried to impart them to my 7yo son. It’s so odd to see how the friend dynamic looks from the outside, isn’t it? I don’t remember it at all. Like you I was shy, so it might have been different for me than it is for my bouncing off the walls boy. But this list is priceless!
Thanks Jen! Now to figure out how to somehow impart this information…
Wise words… Are you sure we’re not somehow related? We are from Iowa…
Wow. This post brought back memories of when I was a little one. I remember a friend’s friend excluding me from playing & made me sit in the formal living room. Still remember feeling sad to this day. Then when her mom went to pick her up, she was scolded for excluding me, so yes, very sound advice for little girls & boys. No one likes feeling left out.
As a coach and dad, I feel like game day is too late to try to teach. This has to be done beforehand. As a dad to three girls, I think my best defense against the awesome list you’ve compiled is to model healthy interactions for them.
If they see dad excluding and bragging and not helping to clean up a mess, why should they listen when I tell them what to do?
Always good stuff here! You’re in my Google+.
Thanks Eli! You have great advice and a good head on your shoulders- you’re in my Google + too!
It all hits so close to home, doesn’t it? My daughter is only two and I am already thinking about this stuff.
It does hit close to home, and I’m amazed at how much I am remembering about my old childhood friendships. Thanks for sharing this post!
Loved it! Maneuvering through your children’s friendships, especially the woes, are so very difficult for a mom. What great advice you have. (My favorite is the streetwalker one)
Yeeeees… Be a good little quiet submissive female. And let me teach you to look down on other females for how they dress. Ugly advice. I have a six year old daughter and I have (and will) say none of these ugly things to her. Your poor child. You are setting her up to be treated poorly later in life—or to bully others.
Um, the whole “Swimsuit” thing was a joke. I would never actually say that to my kid. Lighten up. Empathy, kindness, and not judging others are some of our biggest family values. I would say that judging another person based on a light-hearted blog post is a much better indicator of raising bullies.