How to Help Your Kid Make Friends at School: Tips From an Elementary Teacher
The fluorescent lights above my third grade desk were still buzzing to life when Mia padded over after recess yesterday, her neon pink braids slipping off one shoulder, a half-crushed bag of Goldfish crackers clutched in her hand. She didn’t say anything at first, just kicked the leg of my chair, the same way she does when she forgets her math homework or scrapes her knee on the blacktop. “No one let me play today,” she mumbled, staring at her scuffed sneakers.
Mia moved to our district two months ago, after her dad took a new job across the state. Her mom emailed me the week before, voice tight with worry, saying Mia came home crying every other day, saying she ate lunch alone. I’d been here before, both as a teacher and a mom whose own kid was the new kid in middle school once, so I knew the well-meaning advice most of us reach for first doesn’t actually work. I even made that mistake myself with Mia the week before, when I told her “just go join the four square game by the bench, they’ll let you play.” She came back five minutes later, red-faced, because someone said the rotation was full and she didn’t know how to push past that.
I sat down with her after that, and we went through her backpack together. She pulled out a tiny zipper pouch full of glittery cat erasers, the kind elementary kids go crazy for right now. I remembered Lila, the girl who sits next to Mia in art, brings a new animal eraser every week. I didn’t tell her “go make friends with Lila.” I just said, “Tomorrow in line for art, you can just say ‘I like your eraser. I collect cat ones, too.’ That’s it. You don’t have to do anything else after that.” We practiced it once, right there by my desk, quiet, so no one else could hear.
She did it. The next day she came bouncing over after art, grinning, said Lila pulled out her whole collection and they compared erasers for ten minutes. It wasn’t a sleepover invitation, it wasn’t an instant best friendship. The next day, Lila played tag with a different group at recess, and Mia was a little disappointed again. But that’s the thing: no one expects every first conversation to turn into a forever friend.
Mia’s mom came in for a scheduled conference a couple days later, sipping an oat milk latte from a disposable cup, and said she’d been telling Mia “just smile more” and “go say hi to people” for weeks, and it never worked. That’s where most of us go wrong, I told her. We frame making friends as this big, high-stakes task, when all kids really need is one 30-second connection with someone who shares a small interest.
I gave her three small, specific things to try at home, things I’ve seen work with dozens of new kids over the years. First, stop asking “did you make any friends today?” That question feels like a test, and if the answer is no, your kid leaves the conversation feeling like they failed. Instead, ask small, low-pressure questions: “What’s the silliest thing someone said at lunch today?” or “Who sat next to you on the bus?” It gets them talking about small daily moments, instead of putting pressure on a big end result.
Second, help them pick one small opening line tied to something they already love, and practice it once or twice in the car on the way to school. If they love Minecraft, practice “Have you played the new Minecraft update?” If they bring a soccer ball to recess, practice “Do you know how to do a kick-up?” Small, open questions work way better than “Can I play with you?” which is a yes/no question that puts the other kid on the spot, and makes rejection feel way sharper when it comes.
Third, don’t push them to jump straight into joining a big group game right away. Most nervous kids freeze up when they’re told to run into the middle of a kickball game and ask to join. Start with interactions that don’t require any big commitment: commenting on a sticker on someone’s notebook, comparing erasers, offering an extra snack to the kid who sits next to them. Most kids are just as nervous to talk to new people as your kid is, so a small opening takes the pressure off both sides.
I saw this work with Javi, another new kid in my class from last fall. He used to sit in the corner of the lunchroom because he thought his grandma’s homemade tamales smelled weird, and kids would make fun of him. I suggested he bring an extra tamale one day (his grandma always packs extra anyway) and sit next to the boy who’d been talking about his family trip to Mexico the week before, and offer him a bite. He did it, and now the two of them trade lunch snacks every Friday. It didn’t require Javi to suddenly become outgoing, it just required one small, specific move.
This week, Mia and Lila sat together at lunch, drawing cats in the margin of their math worksheets. They haven’t had a playdate yet, and some days Mia still ends up walking around the blacktop alone for ten minutes before someone asks her to join. I still get check-in emails from Mia’s mom, and some days Mia still comes over to my desk after recess with that same quiet, chair-kicking slump. It’s not a perfect, wrapped-up story. But the small steps are adding up. Most of the time, making friends at school isn’t about being the funniest or most liked kid in class. It’s about finding one other person who cares about the same silly, small thing you do. And that always starts with one 30-second conversation, not a big scary leap into a crowd.
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