Teach Your Child How to Keep Up Friendships

Some children do not understand the process of keeping up a relationship.  They may not know how to say things to make their friend feel good.  They may struggle to put themselves in the other person’s place and imagine how it would feel if they were that person.  They may not balance the relationship — talking about the friend as much or more than themselves. Oftentimes, children with social challenges don’t know how to deal with disagreements with friends.  They are more likely to shout, criticize, use bad words, get revenge, or fight without realizing that these actions only make things worse and put them in danger of losing a friend forever.

 Beginning and maintaining conversations is often difficult for children with social challenges.  They should be reminded that the other person likely wants the conversation as much as they do and they are probably afraid of the same things: embarrassment, rejection, and not really knowing what to say.  Children can be taught that it does not matter a great deal what you say to get the conversation started: what is important is to say enough to invite the other person to respond. 

 Traditional conversation openers can be taught and practiced through role play. Children should practice openers such as:

Asking for information. 

                   “Can you tell me about your school?”

                   “What did you like most about that movie?”

Giving a compliment

                   “Those are cool sunglasses.”

                   “That’s a really neat bike.”

Talking about current events

                   “Did you see that new video?”

                   Did you see that cool show on TV last night?”

 Once they’ve broken the ice, the question becomes how do you make conversation continue?

(c) 1993-2009, monte w. davenport, ph.d.