Although Irish children seem particularly good at making friends, parents still worry about their children fitting in, writes Sheila Wayman
FOR MOTHERS working full-time outside the home, different stages of a child’s development bring their own particular dollops of guilt. A couple of months after my eldest child started junior infants, it suddenly hit me that his “after hours” social life depended on me and I was no help at all.
I was not at the school gate networking with other parents, so what hope had he of being invited on “playdates”? Such arrangements grease the wheels of friendship for children these days.
Even if he did get the odd invitation, it would be difficult to return the favour so requests would be bound to dry up. In more irrational moments, I envisaged my naturally quiet son becoming an outcast as his classmates got to know each other better in the more intimate settings of their own homes. He would be marked out as a loner for life.
Of course I need not have worried. He has happily negotiated his own way through the friendship forest.
On the whole, Irish children seem to be particularly good at connecting with each other. They have more friends than their international counterparts, according to a survey published two years ago.
The Health Behaviour of School-going Children survey ranked Ireland first out of 35 World Health Organisation countries for having three or more friends, reported by 90 per cent of 10-17 year olds when the research was conducted in 2002.
When children start primary school, many parents fret about whether they’ll make friends quickly and easily. Such friendships not only make school a whole lot more enjoyable and lessen the chances of a child being bullied, but also serve as a template for a life of relationships.
“You have to be pro-active in helping children form friendships,” says John Sharry, director of Parents Plus and author of Positive Parenting (Veritas). The day when you just sent them out onto the street to share experiences with peers and make friends, with little idea of what was going on, has largely gone.
The early years of children’s socialising is now much more managed by parents, who should not underestimate the importance of young friendships.
“Forming friendships and having close friends is a big thing for your child’s self-esteem,” Sharry stresses. “It’s a model for long-term relationships, for love relationships and for life-long friendships.”
He advises parents to watch carefully, and support children in having friends over. “Playdates are a good habit,” he suggests. “Children really rate those things.”
Playdates is a term the manger of Parentline, Rita O’Reilly, dislikes. “It’s terribly formal and it’s a pity it has to happen like that.” But she acknowledges that this is the system of socialising for many.
“Go with what’s done in your area,” she suggests, whether it’s playdates or letting children out into a communal area to mix under the watchful eye of a parent or two.
The confidential helpline run by Parentline gets many calls relating to friendships issues. Common worries are a difficulty in making friends, the effect of falling out with friends or becoming involved with the “wrong crowd”.
“The greatest dilemma any parent faces is whether, and how far, to get involved either in a child’s making friends or in smoothing upsets between friends,” says child development expert Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer.
In a new book entitled Making Sense of Your Child’s Friendships, she focuses on children’s typical friendship experiences before they reach adolescence and explains why relationships develop in the way they do. She also looks at how parents need to adapt, from directing and fixing children’s friendships at the beginning, to staying in the background once they are settled in primary school and approaching middle childhood.
In pre-school, it’s clear that certain children are attracted to each other. Having friends is all about “liking” someone and enjoying the company, but their understanding of friendship doesn’t go beyond that.
In junior and senior infant classes, children start talking about liking someone because they are “kind”. Younger children feel safer with such friends around them.
At this stage, many of the friends they see outside school hours will be ones who are convenient for, and preferred by, parents. But that kind of selection process can’t last.
By the age of seven or eight it becomes much more important for children to have a shared interest or experience in common with a friend, says Hartley-Brewer. “Children at this age are inclined to pair up with someone who is not just likeable but is also like them and like-minded, and this is as true for children who are obliging and good as it is for the naughty ones.”
Children’s friendships become more complex around the age of 10. Loyalty, trust and sharing are expected but being kind and caring remain important.
“Friends can be tricky as well as affirming and they certainly are now more inclined to test their power on those close to them. A child may set up a challenge specifically to test the true loyalty of a declared friend, or may use a friend’s need for loyalty to threaten the friendship, to destabilise the individual and thereby keep the upper hand in the relationship.”
As much as it pains parents to see their child isolated or upset by the behaviour of peers, jumping in to try to sort things out is not recommended. Children frequently fall out with friends over little things, but rarely for long.
However, if you do have concerns about ongoing problems, talk to your child’s teacher, advises O’Reilly.
“Teachers see your child in an environment without you around,” she says. “They can see how they are interacting with their pals.” Some children are quiet, wanting to be by themselves at times, and it may not be something to worry about.
If a parent suspects socialisation problems, it is very important to bring them to the attention of the school, stresses Frank Hogan, the principal of Scoil San Treasa in Mount Merrion, Dublin.
“Children can be nasty enough to each other,” he points out. “But the vast majority of them are very nice to each other.
“There can be difficulties with cliques and exclusions. You try to discourage any sort of exclusion but you cannot socially engineer them too much.”
Teachers are attuned to look out for warning signs.
“We have a mixed school here and it is probably easier to deal with the lads’ issues. I don’t want to over-generalise, but girls tend to be a bit more complicated with their little jealousies and things like that. The boys tend to get over them more quickly.”
But after more than 35 years in teaching, and a principal for the past 12 years, he has no doubt that schools are much friendlier places these days. There is far less bullying due to greater awareness and very low tolerance “of any attempt to lower somebody’s self-esteem”, is how he puts it.
“Stuff we might regard as bullying now, we would not have regarded as bullying in the past, particularly the psychological stuff,” he suggests. There is also greater co-operation between parents and teachers in addressing such issues and many aspects of the curriculum focus on building personal relationships.
Creating a positive climate in the school would be the priority for any teacher or any principal, he adds. If sociability and stable relationships are encouraged from junior infants on, there are less likely to be problems as they progress through the school.
If your child is troubled by the ups and downs of friendships, do be sympathetic and supportive, advises Sharry. Discuss the issue with your child and help him or her to think a way through it.
If, after a number of years at school, they don’t seem to have any close friends, don’t give up, he adds. Look for an activity at which they excel, rather than just pushing them into popular group activities regardless of talent. A non-sporty boy will find it much harder to make friends at a football club, where he feels inadequate than, say, an art or chess club, where he is more confident of his abilities.
One of parents’ most important roles is to nurture children’s self-esteem and confidence and another is to encourage friendships, says Hartley-Brewer. “The two are linked, of course, because self-esteem and confidence form the bedrock on which healthy friendships are built.”
Making Sense of Your Child's Friendshipsby Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer is published by Piccadilly Press, £11.99