Managing your child’s friendships is probably something you never considered in your pre-parenting days, but once you have a child helping them to find friends and build friendship skills is essential to their development.

Having friends will not only give your child better self-esteem, but also teach them key social skills such as how to be kind, how to share and how to resolve conflicts.

Building friendships

The easiest way to help your child with their friendships is to schedule play-dates with other mothers who have children the same age as yours, or the mum of a child your child has taken a shine to.

If you don’t know other mothers, potential play-dates can always be found in the park, at the library and at toddler groups. Watch who your child plays with and make friends with their mum.

When hosting a play-date the trick is to keep it simple:

• More than two children at the same time, is usually too many for you and your child to handle.
• Plan the date around a good time, usually post nap and limit the date to two hours.
• Prepare your child for what’s going to happen in advance of the play-date.
• Talk to your child about the toys they would like to share on the play-date (put away any special ones if you fear an all-out war).

It may be tempting to step in, but try not to interfere. The idea is to get your child used to being with other children and start the process of playing together.

However, don’t panic if this doesn’t happen right away as it’s often down to the stages of play that occur at different ages:

• Between 0 - 1 1/2 years your child is likely to play alone.
• From 2 - 2 1/2 your child will play side by side (parallel play) with another child. 
• From 2 ½ - 3 your child will begin to interact with other children.
• Above 4 years your child will show a preference for friends and play happily with other children.

What to do about sharing, discipline, fighting

Sharing is very difficult for small children to grasp and as a result it won’t really sink in until your child is about 2 ½ to 3 years old. Up until then help them out by showing them sharing can be fun. Give them things to share on a play-date such as stickers, or get the kids to share tasks together or give them puzzles where they have to take turns.

The one area to act quickly on is physical squabbles and fights. A simple explanation that pushing/biting/hitting is not acceptable is enough, and then divert both children’s attention with an activity or snack.

Some shy or anxious children can find play-dates excruciating and may cling to your side and refuse to play at all. If this happens, don’t give up. The more play-dates you arrange, the more comfortable your child will become. Help build their confidence by introducing activities that keep you close (colouring, puzzles etc) but still allow them to play independently.

Keep building social skills

Outside of a play-date keep practicing social skills. The relationship they have at home with you will be a template for many of their future friendships.

• When playing together practice sharing and taking turns with toys, books and games.
• Talk about empathy, kindness and other people’s feelings especially when your child gets upset or he/she upsets another child.
• Help him/her to practice listening skills and understanding what someone else wants and acting on it.
• Finally, help your child to cope with rejection. This can be the toughest thing for you to deal with, as no parent likes to see his or her child brushed off. What’s important is to support them. Just being there to comfort them will help boost their self-esteem, and help them to build the inner resources they need to cope with the ups and downs of having friends.