When your children are young, supporting their budding friendships is easy. First, small children don’t really have friends—they play alongside other children, but are seldom really bothered by which children are there. The children of your friends are therefore likely to prove more than adequate playmates, with the added bonus that you can socialise at the same time. As they grow up and start school, they will develop their own friendships, but these can also be nurtured through parent-arranged playdates.

Once your children enter their tweens and teens, it is a different story. Playdates are a thing of the past, and so is formal parental involvement. However, friendships often become more difficult for young people to navigate. How, then, can parents help young people at this stage? This page provides some ideas.

The Importance of Friendships

Friendships matter to everyone—but they are, perhaps, particularly important for young people.

Teenagers are working out how they fit into the world. They are moving away from their parents, and trying to find their own space. To do so, they look to other adults around them—often teachers, youth leaders, or sports coaches—and to their peers. Their friendships therefore shape their view of the world.

The Children’s Society, in a guide to supporting young people’s friendships, says that friendships are an important part of a child’s social development. They also help them to discover who they are, and to gain independence, an important part of growing up.

Finally, good friendships have a huge positive impact on mental health. We know this is true for adults, but it is also true for young people.

The problem is that friendships are not easy to navigate.

Adults do not always get it right—and our page on managing friendships describes how to cope when things go wrong. How much more likely is it that young people, with their less well-developed social skills, will struggle?

This is where adults may be able to help. However, research from the Children’s Society shows that what you do to provide help and support is crucial (see box).

Three Key Areas of Support

The Children’s Society research showed that young people wanted adult support in three key areas. These were listening, acting and building.

1. Listening

It is absolutely essential for adults to listen carefully to what young people say about their friendships.

One of the most common complaints from young people was that the adults in their lives did not fully listen, or kept interrupting.

The most important gift you can give anyone is your attention.

The first step in listening is to be available, so that your child—or others, if you are a teacher, or in a position of authority—knows that they can come to you for help if they want. Paradoxically, that may mean not asking if anything is wrong, but simply providing opportunities to chat.

There is more about this in our page on Communicating with Teenagers.

The second was to listen to what they say, and give them space to talk. Young people also said that adults should not probe for information that the young person does not want to provide. It is important to avoid making any assumptions, or trying to assign blame—in either direction. Simply give the child a chance to talk the situation through.

Finally, don’t rush to suggest a solution—unless that’s what you’re being asked to provide.

First of all, young people—like adults—may just want to vent. They don’t want a solution.

Second, however, our pages on coaching make clear that people are much more invested in any course of action if they are involved in developing it themselves. The entire essence of a coaching approach is to help people to develop the skills to solve their own problems. Our page on Coaching at Home talks about applying this with children and young people. It also provides some questions that you could use to help your child to think through the issues for themselves and develop their own answers.

2. Acting

The second area was to consider when and whether to act, and if you decide to do so, how.

The Children’s Society research showed that young people understood that sometimes adults have to intervene or act in situations. However, they also felt that adults should not simply ‘wade in’ without discussing it with them first. There are several reasons for this.

• It might make the situation worse. Particularly in bullying situations, adult interventions can often backfire.

• It takes away the young people’s agency in the situation.  Intervening suggests that you think that the young people involved cannot resolve the situation themselves. It therefore takes away their agency. You will not always be there to intervene, and your job as a teacher or parent is to help your young people to develop the skills they need to navigate life themselves.

• It can result in the wishes of those involved being ignored. If adults take over, the situation can rapidly change, and this may not be what those involved want.

Remember that actions can never be undone—and may have long-lasting and unforeseen consequences. It often takes more courage to quietly monitor and watch a developing situation, rather than getting involved. However, this may often be the best course of action.

Young people identified three situations when adults definitely should act. These were:

• When you are asked to do so by a young person;

• When you have concerns about someone’s safety, such as a safeguarding concern, or if there is severe bullying happening; and

• When the relationship is damaging (and see our page on Toxic Friendships for more about this type of relationship). In this type of relationship, often the most important action that you can take is to give your child permission to step away. Many children do not understand that they do not have to maintain all friendships at all costs, and this is an important life lesson.

The next question is how to act. In the Children’s Society research, young people were absolutely clear about what they needed from adults here.

In particular, they wanted to know what was happening. They also wanted to be able to make decisions about how adults intervened in their friendships. Even if there is a safeguarding concern, you should still be as transparent as possible with the child concerned.

Adults may want to help to mediate the situation to resolve any conflict. This can be helpful, but only if it genuinely results in communication and negotiation, and not merely an apology with no accompanying behavioural changes.

There is more about this in our page on Mediation Skills.

3. Building

The third area of support was how to help young people to build better friendships.

To do so, it can be helpful to share your own experiences, enable new opportunities for young people to make friends (for example, encouraging them to join youth groups or sports clubs outside school), and help them to find additional support if they need it.

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A Final Thought

Even as adults, it can be difficult to build good friendships. It is therefore essential that adults support young people in their friendships.

However, the most important thing that you can do is to make sure that the young person themselves is in the lead.

Listen to them, provide advice if required, and help them to develop the skills required to build strong and reliable friendships. However, it is advisable only to intervene if asked—and even then, to step with care.

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