How to help your child gain more friends: practical tips from an elementary school teacher
The recess bell just rang, and the rest of the class is stampeding back in, leaving crumbs of Goldfish crackers and kicked-up dust on the hallway floor. Milo lingers by my desk, twisting the corner of a folded origami dragon between his fingers, the one with lopsided googly eyes he’s been carrying around all week. When the last kid passes, he leans in and asks, quiet enough only I can hear: “Ms. Henderson, how do you get more friends?”
I’ve been a 4th grade teacher for 12 years, and I get this question at least once a semester, usually from quiet kids who don’t fit the loud, recess sports mold that clicks so fast for some. I heard it from Milo’s mom just two weeks earlier at parent-teacher conferences, her voice tight with worry. She’d tried everything: signed him up for the local rec soccer team even though he’d rather fold paper than run, forced a group playdate with three neighborhood boys the first month he moved here, even told him to “just smile more” when he moped about sitting alone at lunch. None of it stuck. The soccer coach said he spent most practices hiding behind the goal, and the playdate ended with him locking himself in his bedroom after the other kids got bored of his origami and started playing video games without him.
I didn’t have any big fixes to offer, just a few small things we could try, one at a time. First, I told her, we need to stop asking Milo to be someone he’s not to make friends. The biggest mistake I see parents and even other teachers make is pushing kids to “put themselves out there” in big, awkward ways that don’t fit their personality. Walking up to a group of kids you don’t know and saying “can I play?” is terrifying for most adults, let alone a 9-year-old who’s new to the school.
Instead, we gave Milo a built-in conversation starter that tied to something he already loved. A week after conferences, I pulled him aside during morning free time and asked him to teach me how to fold the lotus flower I’d seen him make the previous week. I did it right where Javi and Lila, two kids who’d been hanging around the art shelf sorting markers, could see. Halfway through fumbling my folds, Javi leaned over and said he’d tried to fold an origami Yoda for Star Wars day and couldn’t get the arms right. Before I even had to say anything, Milo perked up and showed him the trick to tucking the paper. That was it. No big speech, no forced interaction. Just a shared thing he was good at.
For parents who want to try this at home, it doesn’t take much. If your kid collects rocks, pack one or two extra cool ones they can give away if the topic comes up. If they love Minecraft, let them bring a small printed screenshot of their latest build to show someone. The point is to take the pressure off making small talk out of nothing; you already have something to talk about.
The next step was to skip the big group get-togethers and start small. Milo’s mom wanted to throw a big welcome party for him to meet all the kids in the class, but I told her to just invite Javi over for 90 minutes after school one day, focused entirely on origami. No pressure to play other games, no need to entertain for hours. Just buy a couple of fruit popsicles, lay out some extra paper, and leave them alone. She texted me later that day: they folded dragons the whole time, Javi dripped cherry popsicle on the living room rug, and no one locked themselves in any bedrooms. The next week, Javi brought a pack of shiny metallic origami paper he’d gotten for his birthday to give to Milo.
Big groups put quiet kids in a position where they have to fight for space to talk, especially when the other kids already have established friendships. One on one, there’s no pressure, you don’t have to compete for attention. It’s also okay to pick the right kid, not just the closest kid. Milo’s mom had tried setting up playdates with the neighbor boy down the street just because he was the same age, but that boy lived and breathed football, and they had nothing to talk about. Starting with a kid who already showed even a tiny bit of interest in the same thing takes all the guesswork out.
Last week, I stood on recess duty and watched Milo, Javi, and Lila taping folded origami stars all around the edge of our classroom reading nook, laughing when one of the stars fell off and landed in a kid’s half-eaten peanut butter sandwich. It’s not perfect. Some days when Javi and Lila go to soccer practice after school, Milo still sits alone at lunch folding paper. He still hasn’t joined the big group of kids that play tag every recess, and I don’t make him. His mom still texts me once a month wondering if he’ll ever have a big group of friends like the other kids.
I tell her what I tell all parents: gaining more friends doesn’t mean becoming the most popular kid in class. It means finding one or two people who get what you care about, and that almost never happens from forcing big, scary interactions. It happens from small, natural moments: sharing a trick you know, working on a shared project, eating a popsicle together after school. Some kids take longer, and that’s okay. Milo still asks me sometimes if he’s doing this whole friend thing right. I just point to the dragon taped to the edge of my desk, the one he gave me that first week, and tell him he’s doing just fine.
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