What To Do When Your Child Can’t Make Friends

Friendship is very important to children; the feeling of being accepted and approved by others is something children cherish a lot. Which is why, parents are always very concerned when their children find it hard to make friends, and this concern is of course justified. When this happens, don’t jump into conclusion, find out what is going on and see how best you can help your kid make friends.

Why is Your Child Not Having Friends?

Sometimes it is possible that your child is just overreacting, maybe he just had a fight with his best friends and concluded that he no longer has any friends. However, in instances where he genuinely has no friends, then you need to find a way to help him. Find out why he has no friends, you need to know what is responsible for this situation and help him walk through it and start making friends. Some of the reasons that may be responsible for this are:

1. Shy and Unsure

Your child may be the shy type, always keeping to himself, unsure of whether the other kids would want to play with him or accept him to join them. This lack of confidence will definitely affect his ability to connect, interact and mingle with other kids. These kinds of kids are always withdrawn and find it difficult to make small talks or start conversations with other kids.

2. New Environment

When you move into a new neighborhood, your kids may find it difficult to make new friends. This is not abnormal, so there is no need for you to overreact, it sometimes takes longer than you’d expect for your kids to adjust to the new environment and start making friends.

3. Aggressive and Non-sharing

Kids who don’t like to share naturally find it difficult to make friends. Friendship for children means sharing, sharing toys, games, gadgets, electronics, candy, sweets etc. so when your child is aggressive to other kids and doesn’t like to share, the other kids will not like to play with him and that is what friendship means to kids, playing together, sharing and being nice to one another.

4. Loud, Rude and Unfriendly

Sometimes your child may not even realize it, but the problem is with him. He may be rude to the other kids, too loud or sometimes unfriendly in ways that he doesn’t consider unfriendly. This could be because he is sometimes forceful in his demands, grabs things from other kids, overreact when another child does something to him even if it’s accidental or maybe he finds it difficult to say nice things to his peers or even smile or show approval for others.

5. No Attention at Home

When you don’t give attention to your kids at home, they feel unimportant, uncared for and this might be responsible for them not being able to make friends. This negative perception that the kids develop about themselves, is what makes them feel unworthy and not good enough for the other kids. However, in other occasions, kids who have not been given attention at home have been known to seek this attention elsewhere, especially from friends and peers in school and in the neighborhood. But his is not the case all the time.

Help Your Kid Make Friends

Contrary to popular opinion, people do change, especially children. And even more significantly, your child will change, and likely so will their friendships. So don’t become too consumed by the fact that your child doesn’t have friends, with the right steps, you can always help your child change and start making friends. Remember to not be judgmental with your child in this situation.

Here’s how to help your kid:

1. Find Out Why

To help your child, you must first find out why he has no friends. There has to be a reason responsible, and finding it is the first step to helping your child. Talk to him; ask him why he thinks he has no friends. Listen to his reasons and take everyone it into consideration without judgment.

2. Befriend Your Child

Take time to connect with your children, play with them, have a meal with them and get to spend more time with them. If you keep this, you will get to know them better and build a rapport, one way or another. Avoiding them or hovering over them will only cause tension and widen the gap between you and that will make more difficult for you to help them. Getting close to them will help you to realize if their reasons are irrational or if there is a genuine reason for concern. Work on talking the issues through with your child in an age-appropriate way, come to their level and see things from their points of view.

3. Give Emotional Support

Helping your child cope with his feelings is helpful in this situation. When your child says something like “everyone hates me”, you have to make him understand that is not true and totally not possible. Help him keep his negative emotions under control. Your child’s behavior towards other kids is largely determined by what he thinks those other kids think about him. So if he thinks that the other kids hate him, this will make it really difficult for him to connect with them. You have to provide emotional support and help him navigate through it. Don’t be authoritative and forceful on your kid, encourage thoughtful discussions and always listen carefully to what your kid has to say.

4. Understand Your Child’s Social Life and Watch Out for Bullies

It helps a lot when you as a parent are in touch with your child’s social life. This doesn’t mean that you always have to hover over your child or get in the middle of his every interaction with his friends and peers. But it does mean supervising where he plays and helping him choose his friends. Also, make sure that your child is not being bullied, and get involved if he is and resolve the situation and quickly and quietly as possible.

5. Teach Your Child to Communicate Positively

Communication is essential in every relationship and children’s friendship is no exception. The earliest lessons kids learn about communication happen at the home. Instead of just engaging your child in the give-and-take of family dialogue, you can also offer concrete advice about how to make new friends. Teach him how to start small talk, practice short phrases that can help him easily start a conversation with other kids. This way, he learns how to talk with other kids and easily connect and that is how he will make friends.

6. Teach your child to Share and to Be Polite

Sharing is very important in children’s friendship and it is an easy way of making new friends. Teach your child to share and to be polite to others. Kids respond to each other based on how the other kid treats them. So teach your child to treat others politely and share his toys, sweets, and playthings with them. When he learns to do this, the other kids will reciprocate his actions and friendship will result immediately.

7. Walk Your Child through Cultural Difference

Behavior is heavily influenced by culture. Culture may differ by degree when it comes to the traits that define friendship, e.g. “selfish”, “kindness”, “politeness” or “helpful”. In the case of children’s friendship, this will apply in situations where the family moves to a new environment. The culture may differ from your previous home to your new home. Under such circumstance, when your child finds it difficult to make new friends, try to understand what the culture of friendship is like for kids in that environment and help your child adjust to the new culture so that he can fit in and be accepted.

8. Let Your Kid Work it out

Sometimes when possible, you need to step down and let your kid handle the situation on his own. This will help the child develop social and problem-solving skill. This is most especially necessary when the child is a little older. At this level parents need to back off, not in all situations, but when necessary and possible, let the child handle his own affairs.

9. Register Your Child In Social Groups

Find out what kinds of activities your child is interested in and then find a group that is involved in such activities and register your child. It could be a playgroup, a group study or a sports group. These are opportunities to give your child an environment to practice how to connect, interact and make friends. This could be in school or in your neighborhood. By sharing the same environment with other kids for a particular period of time regularly, no matter how shy or unsure the child is, slowly but surely he is bound to find common ground with another child and start feeling accepted.

Conclusion

Friendship is important to children and that is why it is upsetting for parents when their children can’t make friends. This is naturally a part of growing up, so don’t overreact. Find out why your child is finding it hard to make friends, and help him walk through it. Remember it is always possible to change most especially for kids.