How to Help Your School-Age Child Make Friends

November 08, 2009

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How to Help Your School-Age Child Make Friends

by Dr. Benjamin Spock
reviewed and revised by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P.

Just like adults, children will have varying degrees of success in getting along with their peers. Much depends on their basic natures, but there are things that parents can do to help their children be sociable and popular.

Allow your child the freedom to develop independence. In an ideal situation, this can mean making as few changes as possible in where the family lives and where your child goes to school. Often, of course, family relocations are an unavoidable reality. One way to buffer such upheavals is by creating-and sticking to-family traditions such as having a family movie night or special dinners with candles, sparkling cider, and favorite foods one evening a week. Rituals help give children a sense of control over events and make changes less disorienting.

Within reason, let your child associate with, dress like, talk like, play like, and have the same allowance and other privileges as the other children in the neighborhood. Of course, I don't mean letting her take after the town's worst scoundrel-I'm talking about nice kids here! And you don't have to take your child's word about what the other children are allowed to do-if something sounds a bit far-fetched, use your judgment or talk to the other parents.


RELATED INFORMATION

			The Unpopular Child (School Age)
			Friends and Peers

Adapted from Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care
Reviewed and revised February 01, 2001

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