My Child is Being Left Out
I just want to say upfront that I totally relate to this question. I think that it was in 3rd grade when one of my daughter’s “best friends” started to group up and exclude people from their group. They even told my daughter that they wanted her in the group, but that she would have to not talk to or be nice to other people in her class. I was so proud of my daughter for refusing to do this, but it came with a cost, as she was then on the outside of the group of her closest friends. When our daughter faced with this situation we helped by doing 3 main things.
Help Your Child Feel Safe
The first was to be a sounding board and encouragement to our daughter. She needed to have a safe place to come home to and express her hurt and disappointment without judgement. She also needed us there telling her how proud we were of her for showing God’s love to everyone, because this is what He asks us to do. She needed to know that what she was doing was the right thing, even when it did not feel like it (and she needed to hear this often). Make sure that you are a place where she can express herself safely. If you give too much advice, it will feel like you are not listening, but rather are judging her for not handling the situation the way that you would have.
Encourage Positive Friendships
The next thing that we tried to do as parents was to help her find and evaluate potential “close friendships.” We talked with her about what makes a good friend. This helped her to evaluate herself in how she would be seen as a friend. It also helped her to evaluate others as she got to know them if they had the characteristics of a good friend. It was tradition in our family (at that age) for Dad or Mom to go spend the day with them at school on their birthday. I remember intentionally watching other students in her class and evaluating how they were interacting with others as an attempt to help her evaluate some new positive friends. Then we started to intentionally creating times for them to spend time together (i.e. inviting them over, going to events together, etc.) to allow them to establish a positive, close friendship.
Trust in Your Faith
Finally, and probably most importantly, we spent time praying for them. Praying that God would help our children find friends that would be a positive influence on them. Friends who would encourage them in their walks with God and who they too could encourage in their walks. Friends that would encourage godly behavior and habits. Friends who would be a “safe haven” when others were being a discouragement to them. Today, our daughter has a couple of really close friends, who are definitely an answer to these prayers.
Teach Your Child the Value of Forgiveness
I want to caution you, that not all situations such as this will require the cutting off of the friends that our daughter experienced. It can be just a temporary situation, where two friends are upset with each other. If this is the case, as parents we can facilitate the mending of the relationship by helping them work out the issues that caused the difficulty. If we can do this, we will not only mend a relationship, but we will also be teaching our child the life-long skill of forgiveness and reconciliation.
These are difficult waters to maneuver and it takes a balance between being a good listener and helping your child develop skills that they need to be a good friend, evaluate good friends, deal with disagreements, etc. Remember you are your child’s oasis. They need you to be that safe place, when nothing else seems safe. All of this starts with building a relationship with your child where they know that they can come to you and talk about anything and that your love for them will never be in question.
