Ask the Expert: My son’s new best friend is a bad influence

Q I'm worried about my 10-year-old's choice of friends. He has just finished fourth class. Until the start of September he seemed to belong to a big group of boys who all played together and went to each other's houses.

This year he has focused in on one boy as his best friend: I hear he is the class clown and chief messer. I can see my lad getting into more trouble and his end-of-year report, for the first time, had comments about his behaviour in class and the yard; stupid things such as talking in class, and being giddy and overexcited, but it's just not how he would have been last year and I don't want him labelled a troublemaker because of this other child. I've also seen that my boy has stopped being asked to all the parties he was at last year.

I’m worried that this is going to become a pattern with him and friends into the future. I want to take the matter in hand before he starts back in September, but I’m not sure what I can do. He is getting on fine with his schoolwork and there are no problems at home.

A How to keep your child away from the “wrong type” of friends concerns parents of children of all ages. Yes, they will make choices that are not good for them but it’s important to remember that of the many friends your child will make, good or bad, very few will last the course and most will peter out naturally without any involvement from you. It can be hard to stand back and do nothing if you think your child is being led astray, but banning a friendship completely is not usually an option.

Friendships change with age, and children move through phases of valuing different qualities in others.

At age seven and eight, best friends can change from day to day and there is usually little loyalty among friends. That changes within the next couple of years, when the quality of friendships deepens, and relationships are based more on personality and compatibility and you start to see children developing the idea of “best friends”.

Your son obviously finds something attractive about this boy and maybe, as a child, he sees qualities that are not obvious to adults. Criticism of a friend can be taken very personally at 10, and flatly preventing him from seeing his friend might backfire and make him seem more attractive. It’s likely to be impossible to enforce, anyway, if they’re in the same class.

Separate the behaviour from the friendship

One idea is to separate the problem behaviour in school from the friendship. Approach the behaviour head-on through a combination of reward systems to encourage specific positive behaviours such as “listening when the teacher is talking” and “sitting in my chair during classwork” and, if absolutely necessary, negative consequences, which means that there is a specific sanction in place such as “no screen time for a day” if there is an incident in school.

Ask your child’s opinion

It might be a good time over the summer to start a regular conversation about expectations when he goes back to school and an open-ended discussion about friendships in general and what they mean.

Ask your child’s opinion about what constitutes a good friend and work on getting him to start thinking about equality, reciprocity and different qualities in different friends.

Encourage diverse friendships

Regarding not being asked to everyone’s parties, this is quite normal; there seems to be a fall-off in the whole-class parties in and around fourth class, and children seem to opt for smaller parties with a more select group. But it would be a worry if the invitations have dried up completely.

Something you can still do when a child is 10 (it gets more difficult with age) is to invite other children over. This will encourage greater diversity in his friendships and avoid him being isolated if this friendship comes to a natural end.

Evaluate the friendship

Another idea is for you to get a better idea about the quality and status of this relationship. Watch the two of them play together over the summer months to see how balanced and mutual the relationship is. It also gives you an opportunity to get to know the other child and make a more informed judgment.

You might find that this is the type of class clown who teachers like, rather than a troublemaker. You might also learn, as many parents do, that their own child is not quite the angel they thought.

Try to get to know his parents, although be careful about laying any blame for the situation with them; you still have to meet them at school for another two years. You may find that you disagree with their approach to childrearing, but at least you will have a better idea of what you are dealing with and how to handle the situation.

Involve the teacher

It will be really important to include his new class teacher in any discussion or plan and to get them on board from the outset. Teachers are a fantastic source of information and advice and they can become involved in practical strategies like a reward system, separating them in class and encouraging a wider friendship group.

Let him choose

With regard to your worries about future relationships, the older your child, the less control you have over who they play or socialise with. Criticism of friends becomes more powerful with age and, as they get older, the more you try to lay down the law, the less likely they are to listen to you. You are never going to like all their friends, just as they won’t like all of yours, but you have to allow them to make those choices and, with luck, to learn from their mistakes.

It’s important to use these earlier years to lay down the foundations that will help guide them through the possibly more turbulent years.

Dr Sarah O’Doherty is a child clinical psychologist. Dr John Sharry is away.