It was a Sunday afternoon, and my family had gone out for pizza with some friends. While I was chatting with another mom, my second grade daughter ran up to me, announcing that another friend of ours was at the restaurant with her daughter.
Except that she wasn't my friend anymore. And I had to tell my daughter that we'd had a fight, weren't friends anymore, and that I didn't want to walk over to say hello. We hadn't drifted apart. To say that we had fought was not an exaggeration -- it was an ugly, uncomfortable blowout that had bled into other relationships and had even affected my job. It was awful, and I was never, ever going to be friends with her again. But how did I expect my second grade daughter to grasp such intricacies? Especially when I repeatedly coached her to mend fences when she and her own friends had argued?
My daughter was no stranger to friendship drama; sadly, even in kindergarten she had struggled with unkind friends, gossip, rumors and the ever-awkward dynamic of three little girls attempting to play together. I knew she had years ahead of her filled with hurt feelings, exclusion, arguments, lies and eventual breakups. But what I wasn't sure of was how to begin teaching her about the realities of those inevitable hurdles and subsequent friendship loss. As I reflected on the many conversations we'd had about friendship, I realized we had already covered a lot of ground about how to navigate social challenges, and a few lessons stood out:
- Openly share your own childhood friendship stories -- this is so important to little girls. My daughter loves to hear me share my own tales of trying to balance my friendships with my two best friends who didn't get along with each other, birthday parties gone wrong and what happened when the "new girl" came to town and took away my best friend. Knowing that I, too, had problems, and more importantly, that I overcame them, helps my daughter to feel less alone. As you discuss your own experiences of hurt, anger and loneliness, you become a more reliable confidante -- when children sense that their parents can genuinely empathize, they are more likely to share their feelings and more likely to listen to your advice.
There are myriad resources available to couples who are looking for help to save a broken relationship, but there seems to be a distinct lack of support for women (or men) who want to fix a troubled friendship. While most people (theoretically) practice monogamy in their romantic relationships, the same concept does not apply to friendships, which perhaps sends a message that friends are expendable and easily replaced. However, much like romantic relationships, finding a new partner doesn't always mean that unhealthy patterns have been broken, and the same problems often play out again and again. Teaching our daughters about friendship is both complex and essential. As mothers, we can give our daughters the emotional and communicative tools to repair damaged friendships, identify when they need to assert themselves, and help them cope with the pain of loss.
This post originally appeared on The HerStories Project as a companion piece to the upcoming anthology about friendship breakups, My Other Ex: Women's True Stories of Leaving and Losing Friends. Join the HerStories Project Facebook community.