Reply to I had to explain to DD today that her friend isn't really a friend

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Reply to "I had to explain to DD today that her friend isn't really a friend"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I guess I'm the lone voice of dissent.  I think children can figure out who is their friend, and exactly how much.  Your DD already knew that her friend is a sometime-friend.  If your DD is happy about that, then she'll keep up the friendship, and if she's not, she won't.  She doesn't need a lecture from mom about how, if a friend doesn't always treat you well, she's not a friend at all.  [/quote]

Are you a mom to boys? I am and I feel like we let our boys navigate through life with less intervention than girls. Yes, painful to watch sometimes, but interfering is not something I do unless 8ts absolutely critical.[/quote]

Yes, I am a mom to boys, and grew up with brothers (and my mother grew up with brothers).  [b]It seems to me that children know the difference between a best friend, a good friend, a sometimes friend, and a bad friend and can decide whether to keep a friendship or not. [/b] [/quote]

NP here. That's a pretty big generalization, saying that it seems "children know the difference."They don't necessarily just know it instinctively; they learn by experience, and experience can hurt, so what's wrong with a parent offering consolation and advice when it does hurt?

If children could always "decide whether to keep a friendship or not" then they wouldn't do things like stick with friends who treat them badly. And kids do that sometimes, as they learn to navigate friendships.

It's not "interfering," as a PP says above, to do as OP did and just point out that yes, there are so-called friends who are not really behaving like real friends. Children learn what friendship should look like from their experience and from what their parents teach them about friendships and how people should treat each other. It's appropriate for OP to have said exactly what she did. She wasn't interfering -- she was supporting her child but not telling her child what to do.[/quote]

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