How to Teach Your Kid About Friendship: Simple Everyday Tips for Parents
The goldfish crackers were still in the bowl when my 7-year-old Lila burst through the front door last month, cleats scraping the hardwood and cheeks streaked with mud and tears. She threw her shin guards into the hall closet and collapsed onto the bench by the door, sniffling that her best friend Mia had announced she was “switching best friends” to the new girl on the soccer team because Lila runs too slow to score goals.
My first instinct, the first dozen times this happened, was to jump in. I’d tell her she was the fastest kid on the block, offer to text Mia’s mom to sort it out, or suggest she just make new friends. That never helped. She’d just cry harder, and an hour later we’d both be frustrated, no closer to figuring anything out. I realized I’d been making the same mistake my parents made with me: I was giving a vague rule instead of teaching her how to notice and navigate small, messy moments every day.
A few months back, I started volunteering in Lila’s first grade classroom, and I noticed something all the kids had in common: they all knew the phrase “be a good friend,” but none of them could tell you what that actually looks like on a Tuesday afternoon at recess. A kid might know they’re supposed to share, but they don’t know how to say they don’t feel like sharing a favorite toy that day. They know they’re supposed to be nice, but they don’t know how to say someone hurt their feelings without yelling or running away.
I started with a tiny shift, just two minutes added to our nightly dinner routine. Instead of asking “did you have fun with your friends today?” I ask two simple questions: “What’s one thing a friend did today that made you happy?” and “What’s one thing that felt icky that a friend did?” It’s not a big intervention, just a regular prompt to stop and notice. Last week, Lila said the icky part was that her friend wouldn’t let her join the chalk drawing because her dress wasn’t pink enough. Instead of jumping in to fix it, I just said “That does sound icky. What did you do?” She said she went and drew her own chalk rainbow by the slide, and two other kids joined her. That’s the thing: once they get used to talking about the small stuff, they start solving small problems on their own.
When Lila had that big fight with Mia after soccer, I didn’t text anyone or suggest she cut Mia off. I just wiped her face and asked “What do you think you want to do about this?” She thought for a few minutes, twisting a loose string on her sweatshirt, and said she wanted to tell Mia she hurt her feelings. We practiced what she might say, no rigid script, just enough to get her comfortable: “When you said you didn’t want to be my best friend anymore because I run slow, that made me really sad.” She said it to Mia at practice the next day, and it turned out Mia didn’t even realize she’d hurt Lila’s feelings—she’d just been mad that Lila accidentally took her water bottle to the other side of the field. They made up on the spot, and shared a pack of gummy bears after practice.
It doesn’t always work out that neatly, which is part of the lesson. A few weeks ago, a boy in Lila’s class kept pushing her off the swing, and she told him it made her sad, and he did it again. So she decided to swing at a different time after that, and that was that. I didn’t force her to work it out or make him be her friend. That’s another thing I’ve learned: teaching kids about friendship means teaching them it’s okay to walk away from people who make them feel bad, too. It doesn’t have to be a big fight, it just means you get to choose who you spend your time with.
We keep a bin of extra sidewalk chalk, fruit snacks, and bubbles by our front door, and Lila knows if she sees a kid playing alone outside, she can grab something and go ask them to join. It’s a tiny habit, but it’s taught her that friendship starts with small, kind gestures, not just having the same favorite cartoon or matching backpacks. Last month, she invited the new girl who moved in three houses down over to bake cookies, just because she said she saw her sitting alone on her porch after school. I didn’t even have to suggest it.
Last weekend, Lila and Mia had a fight over who got to push the swing first, and Lila came in slamming the door, yelling that she was never talking to Mia again. She ate a cherry popsicle on the couch and watched 10 minutes of Bluey, and then there was a knock on the door. It was Mia, holding a crumpled dandelion she’d picked from the yard, saying she was sorry. Lila grabbed her sneakers and ran out before I could even ask if she wanted to bring an extra snack.
I leaned against the doorframe watching them chase each other around the oak tree, and I thought about how I still don’t always get friendship right as an adult, so why would I expect Lila to get it right every time? We’re still figuring it out, one icky recess moment and one dandelion apology at a time. Some days it works, some days there are tears on the way home from soccer. But the small, daily practice of noticing and talking and trying seems to stick better than any lecture I ever could have given.
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