Part 1 of Understanding Social Friendships for Kids

Friendship is wonderful. Genuine friendship. However, have you ever tried to explain to a kid that the person they call, “friend,” isn’t really a friend? And maybe not even because that child has done anything wrong. Maybe it’s because they just met them 2 seconds ago on the playground. It’s so easy to reference every child your own meets as a friend when they’re little. As adults, we have such warm feelings around that word, and we want to make sure our kids have the same. We want them to understand treating them kindly, hands to themselves, no name calling or yanking toys away. And so, we find ourselves saying things like, “We don’t hit our friends,” or, “friends share with each other, not yank toys away.” And innocently enough, it seems like a great way to phrase it. We treat our friends kindly. But, what happens when they encounter someone who isn’t a friend? Does that mean they don’t need to treat them with kindness? Or, what happens when they interpret that the other child on the playground must be a friend, since they played together, and now they’re trying to obligate you into a play date and sharing your phone number with a complete stranger so you can invite them into your home? Or they’re inviting that child for a sleep over? We found ourselves in this predicament, more than once. And so, we came up with a way to help offer some delineations and categories for people we meet, without leaving things only as black and white as, “friend or not.”

At first, it started with an example that looked exactly like above. Lyla found a kid on the playground to play with. She ran back and announced she’d made a friend. Super! And so they played for the next few hours, while the adults of this child sat at a nearby picnic table fighting with one another. And no judgement here that they fought, all couples have those moments. And then the little girl fell and got hurt. Normal for the playground. But, they were so absorbed in their squabble, that Lyla was actually the one to come to me and ask for our first aid kit out of the back of the car. We got her cleaned up, and a band aid put on. By the time we were leaving, Lyla came to me with her new found, “friend,” and said, “Mom, my friend invited me to have a sleep over at her house, can you give her mom your number and you guys can talk and we can do that?” Yikes. Talk about on the spot. Aside from the obvious concerns of sending your kid to a strangers house for a sleep over in general, it was coupled with my only insight to these people were that they were dealing with some stuff and perhaps not real attentive (I realize that this snippet doesn’t tell their entire parenting story, but it wasn’t enough positive for me to want to engage with them going forward, much less put my child in their home). So, I’m sure I gave her and her friend some fluff about we would have to talk about it at home and we’d see them next time and go from there. And that’s what prompted the next few posts.

I had to sit down and tell Lyla that people we know are broken into 4 categories. And they can move back and forth within the categories, permanently or temporarily. The category they’re in alone does not determine whether they’re a good person or bad person, just the amount of access we allow them to us. All of this information is provided that our, “spidey senses,” aren’t going off with this person, and not making us feel unsafe.

Our 6 categories are

• Strangers
• Acquaintance
• Peer
• Friend
• Friends Cont.
• Family
• Not our people

For the sake of small children, it’s often easiest to do this with the middle 4 categories. However, if you have a child that needs the extra 2, I’ve included them.

First up, strangers. A stranger is someone that we don’t know anything about. They are neither good nor bad, but we don’t know enough about them yet to know if they should be a trusted person in our life.

What are some examples of a stranger?

• The cashier at the grocery store
• Performers at a show
• The server at the restaurant
• Other children or parents at the park, or other places you may go

A stranger is still a human, and subsequently we treat them as such. All humans deserve a basic level of respect, regardless of your friendship status.

What does this look like?

• Offering a smile or a wave as you pass by
• Asking, “how are you today?”
• Acknowledging them as they speak to you or ask you questions
• Being polite (please, thank you, excuse me)
• No name calling, bullying or insulting behaviors.

How much access or identifying information do these people get? Almost nothing.

• First names only (probably if you’re included in a show, or another child asks your name)
• Who your parents are

It does not include

• Last names
• Home address
• School and class information
• Extra curricular information such as team names, or specific classes and where they’re held
• Phone numbers or kids messenger friend codes.

This sums up strangers. Head on over to see how we covered “acquaintances.”