Handy 5 Step Plan for Early Friend Drama

This week my friend sent up her bat signal on her Facebook page asking the rest of us for advice: her second grader was having trouble with friends at school during recess. Short of getting her own bad reputation on the playground, what should she do? Help me, friends of Facebook, you’re my only hope, she wrote. As a mom with a second grader again for the fifth time, I was good for more than getting not so subtle Star Wars references. I had been around this tree before and I could lay this one out for her pure and simple. Just call me Obi Wan Kenobi.

In my humble opinion, second grade can be one of the flash points for mean friend stuff, mostly because it’s a high point for any friend stuff up to this moment. Greater cognitive skills at this age means that our sweet nuggets are not only reading and writing better, but they are developing higher levels of discernment in other areas as well. This means that while your kid may be cultivating an adorable love of bugs like my girl did when she was this age or a funny fetish for all things Star Wars and Chima like my current seven year old, he or she may also be breaking hearts all over the playground.

From a developmental standpoint, the role of peers increases between 7 and 8, so second grade can be especially rough in the friendship arena. One of the most beautiful and important developments at this age is that of a best friend. It can also be one of the most tricky, especially when the tides turn as they are wont to do in the fickle years of early elementary school.  While one day your son may be picking out LEGOs to share with his “bestest” buddy, the next day he could be screaming ”You’re not my first best friend anymore.” So we, my own second grader and I, spend a LOT of time talking about handling crappy friend stuff and discussing what it means to be a friend. But we also have a handy dandy plan in place for helping with early friend drama.

Here’s what I shared with my friend and now I’m sharing it with all of you.

Handy 5 Step Plan for Early Friend Drama - As young children develop cognitively and emotionally, their friendships can become trickier. Here is a plan to help you and your child. |Parenting Advice| Sisterhood of the Sensible Moms

In a nutshell, it’s a plan for working things out and it moves from handling it themselves to getting help.

1–Call them out.

I prompt my son to actually ask “Why did you say that or do that?” Usually the issue stops right here. This fall on the soccer field, Eddie’s friend from Scouts was playing on the other team. My son heard the boy say something mean about our team during the game. Afterwards, my son went up to say “Hi!” to his friend, but before we all went our separate ways, I heard him ask his friend why he’d said his mean comment. To his credit, the boy apologized right away.

2–Tell them how it makes you feel.

In my masters program, my wonderful child development professor emphasized time and again that besides actually understanding what is happening at each stage and age, the greatest gift we could give children is the ability to name and share their emotions. Teaching kids to say, “When you said this, I felt this way” sends a powerful message that emotions are important to relationships and need to be expressed and responded to appropriately.

3–Step away and play with somebody else.

Sometimes it’s just time to move on–not move on forever, but for right now. Let them know it’s okay to try something else. A little breathing room can be a beautiful thing for all parties involved. This is a subtle but sophisticated maneuver. There is no big talk or verbal showdown. No fits or pouting. It’s a simple change of plans: I was playing with you, but now I’m going to play over here.

4–Get help.

Kids need to really work the first three steps before they get others involved. First, they really, really need to learn to figure things out on their own. From a developmental standpoint, they know right from wrong so they need opportunities to practice exercising their good judgment. But also, tattling is a bad habit that makes you persona non grata with humans big and small. No time like in the very beginning to break this one habit and hard. But if they have tried and things are still somewhere south of sunny with their buddy,  they need to know that they can call on an adult or older kid to help out, especially when the situation has gotten physical or there is no safe way to talk it out.

5–Tell them you need a break from them and why.

I love a break when friends aren’t playing well, but at this point in the “interfriendtion” it’s important to spell out why. After trying everything else including getting adults involved, sometimes it’s just better to give the friendship a rest with a reason. Twenty-four hours may be all the time they need to gain a fresh perspective and be able to deal with each other as friends again. But the kicker is that it also gives time to think about why things didn’t go so well and talk it over with trusted adults before trying to play together again.

 Hope our handy guide restores peace in your universe and may the force be with you!

-Erin

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2 thoughts on “Handy 5 Step Plan for Early Friend Drama

  1. Meredith

    I’ve said this so many times before, but having you ladies go before and share your experience has been a huge help for me. We’re not at this age yet, but I know it’s coming! Thanks, Erin and Ellen!
    Meredith recently posted..The FailureMy Profile

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