Child Fighting With Friends
Question:
“My child seems to fight a lot with her friends. How can I help her?”
Answer:
Understanding Your Child, Yourself, and the Situation
As parents, it is painful to watch our children suffer hurt, rejection, and isolation when they fight with their friends. However, this too seems to be a part of the growing-up experience. Even though children seem to suffer terribly when they fight, they usually get over the pain much more quickly than adults do. It is a mistake for parents to think they should protect their children from experiencing problems in life. Instead of playing the rescuer, parents can help their children more by being observers, listeners, coaches, and cheerleaders. In this way, children learn they can deal with life experiences in productive ways or that they can simply deal with the pain and that it goes away when they get on with their lives.
We are talking about normal life experiences, not pain inflicted by abnormal experiences or safety issues, such as sexual abuse, gangs, bullies, or racism. There is a difference between friends fighting and our children becoming victimized and powerless. If the latter is occurring, parents need to take a very active role in getting outside help and/or helping children cope with a situation that may be beyond their ability to manage safely.
