Parent Question:
My eight-year-old daughter has a friendship that can be quite intense. She often talks about the other girl getting upset. My daughter feels responsible for her friend and worries that she’ll be in trouble when the other girl gets upset. The upset is happening more and more often. The cause of upset that I am aware of includes my daughter hanging out with or talking to different schoolfriends.
My main concern is supporting my daughter, to reassure her that it’s okay to have other friends. She doesn’t appear to struggle with other friendships. We speak quite openly at home, and she seems to be good at expressing her feelings. I’ve also spoken to the school about her and there’s no issue from their point of view. Is there anything else I can do?
Also, the other girl’s mother gets involved and has confronted me about my daughter, complaining to me regularly about things my daughter does and says to hers. It seems like she is putting my daughter front and centre of everything that upsets her daughter.
I don’t like to be over-involved as everything the girls are going through appears to be age-appropriate. Any advice on anything else I can do to support my daughter or how I can set clearer boundaries with the other mother?
Answer:
Intense childhood friendships can be problematic, as they can be easily subject to jealousy and falling out. If a child has a single intense or “best friend” then they can become dependent on the other child and can to be upset or even heartbroken when this child moves on to other friendships. For this reason, I suggest that parents encourage their children to have a network of at least 3-4 close friendships that they can draw upon. This means that they have other children they can spend time with when one friend moves on.
Childhood friendships are always evolving and changing — your child might be close to one child for a period and then closer to another and then make another friend somewhere else. As a parent you want to help your child navigate the world of friendships without too much heartbreak or upset.
It is great that your daughter is able to talk to you about her friendship dilemma. You are right to listen to her feelings and to reassure her that she can talk to other children and make other new friends. It is also important to help her understand the feelings of the other girl (that she might feel jealous or excluded or not have other friends at the moment), without her feeling responsible for the other girl’s feelings. You can then help her think through how she might respond and how she might cope.
In my experience the goal is to help your daughter find a way to be friendly and respectful to the other girl while building her other friendships as well.
The idea is to try to avoid a big “falling out” and to allow the friendship to naturally change and perhaps become less intense. It could be that over time the friendship with the other girl ends, or it could be that it evolves into a more balanced one. As a parent your goal is to support your daughter navigate this process.
However, reading your email the main challenge you are dealing with is the involvement of the girl’s mother. Frequently conflicts in girls’ friendships get mirrored in the mothers’ relationship. The other girl is jealous and wants your daughter to be an exclusive friend and her mother is upset at her daughter’s unhappiness and wants you to get your daughter to do something about this. You can start feeling similar upset and stress as your daughter is feeling.
If I was to meet the other mother I would empathise with her upset, but encourage her to help her daughter pull back from depending on the relationship with your daughter and more importantly to start building some other friendships. There also could be a particular context to her daughter’s upset — for example the schoolyard is often difficult for children who don’t have someone to talk to and they can easily feel excluded. The schoolteacher should be able to help with this.
However, the other mother has not contacted me and instead you are wondering how to manage your response to her if she confronts you. This is of course a delicate conversation to get right. I would suggest that you try to be polite and listen to her concerns but let her know how things are from your perspective.
A potential way forward might be to say: “I’m sorry your daughter is unhappy, would it be best if the girls pull back a bit and arrange to do other things as well as meeting each other.” Depending on what your daughter wants you could limit the contact the girls have to certain times and activities and when they do meet arrange good activities that support them to have a better relationship.
Managing friendships and dealing with disputes and falling outs are common challenges for children in primary school. Being there supportively as a parent is the best way to help them navigate these challenges and to learn important friendship skills they grow up.
John Sharry is founder of the Parents Plus Charity and an adjunct professor at the School of Psychology, University College Dublin. This parenting Q&A was originally published in the Irish Times in June 2023. John writes in the Irish Times Newspaper on Tuesdays. His website is www.solutiontalk.ie.