This is a very sensitive subject to me: my children and their friends.  There is not a better feeling in this world then knowing that your kids have good friends in their life – friends they can have fun with, friends with similar interests and kids who are good, kind and loving!

I see the pure joy in my daughter’s face when she is playing with her friend, Madison.  It is like something comes alive inside her and she can let go of any nervousness and anxiety and just be her delightful self.  I watch the same thing with my oldest son. Put a football in his hand and,  with his friend Treajan by his side, he is blissfully happy.  He is diving for passes, in a huddle making up football plays and laughing!

Friends are very important, not only in the lives of our children, but also for mothers, too.  We simply must have that friend that we can break down in tears and talk about our challenges and struggles.  We simply need the understanding and compassion of other mothers in our lives.  We must have a friend we can sit with over a cup of hot chocolate and talk about our dreams. And we must have girlfriends to laugh our faces off with.  One of my favorite quotes is:

“We drop like pebbles into the ponds of each other’s souls.” – Joan Borysenko

So it is, as human beings, as women, as 7-year-olds, we all need friends.  It is work to have friends as a mom, but there is nothing an afternoon at the park with a good friend and happy children running and playing together won’t cure!

“If true friendship can be found, cherish it like a fine gem.  Polish it, go out of your way to keep and protect it.  Keep it safe, but let it shine for itself. It will grow and grow.”  -Mark Swaney

The girls come home one day, telling me how much they love Suzie; the next day, they tell me that she’s mean and not their friend anymore.  The same story is told probably three times in a week.  I suppose this is a rather normal occurrence for children just starting school, but I want to ensure that the kids are socially adept.

Dr. Iannelli, a pediatrician with About.com suggests that friends at this age generally are swapped out rather frequently; however, he offers some tips to help kids keep and make friends.  First and foremost, he suggests extracurricular activities.  This is fitting since the girls do play on a sports team and I plan on getting them into ballet (yes, they saw the Nutcracker, and now want to be ballerinas).  I think this is also beneficial because it teaches the concept of teamwork and good sportsmanship.  You can’t be the best all the time, and I think that sports and other athletic type activities teach kids how to effectively cope with failure. 

The other thing that I did was to sit down and explain to them that sometimes, people do things that you don’t like.  Mommy and Daddy don’t always get along, so why would it be reasonable to believe that you’re always going to be on the same sheet of music as your friends?  I want the girls to live a sheltered life, but don’t want them being naive or believing in a Beaver Cleaver world.  Sometimes people do and say things that annoy or hurt you, but you’ve got to get over it. 

Finally, I told them that they need to say something!  If Suzie does or says something that hurt your feelings or you didn’t like, use your words!  It does no good to sit around and be steamed over something a friend did; I know that if I irk my friends, I want them to say something so that I know and won’t do it again.  It’s not healthy for kids to learn the habit of bottling up their feelings.  For more, read the full article here.

How do you explain or deal with this issue with your tweens.  This is pretty new territory for me so I’d love to hear what you have to say.  Please, share your experiences!