Watching Your Child Try To Make Friends Is The Most Cringe-Inducing Part Of Parenting

We all remember the social awkwardness of our childhood, don’t we? I can’t be the only one who still gets random flashbacks to the times you didn’t get invited to a big party or lunches sitting alone in the cafeteria. Personally, I changed schools a lot as a kid and being the new person was never easy. Now, as a mom, watching my daughter begin to fumble with social situations and attempt to build friendships might be one of the most difficult things for me to sit back and let her handle on her own.

A couple weeks ago, my daughter and I were at the park on a busy weekend afternoon. I tend to avoid the peak times at our local park, preferring the less hectic early mornings or dinner time trips. But my daughter asked and I acquiesced and there I was sharing a bench with a random dad who didn’t want to chit chat at all. Normally, my little girl finds one girl a couple years older than her, asks if they can play and then she’s set until that little girl has to go home. Today however, my little girl seemed to be striking out.

With the park so crowded, there were groups of kids everywhere. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot of individual kids who would still be looking for a buddy. I watched my daughter walk up to various groups of girls, have a short conversation and then walk off looking a little dejected. I started to feel horrible for. She switched to groups of boys, still no luck. Still a short conversation and then my daughter’s face would drop and she’d walk away.

In that moment, it took all the self-control I had not to get up and see what the problem was. Why weren’t things working out with multiple sets of kids? What was going on here? Every fiber of my being want to see my daughter playing happily with the other children. I hated watching her get rejected by her peers.

My concerned face was showing. The dad who wouldn’t make eye contact must have started to pay attention to what was going on. As my daughter walked away from another set of kids, he kind of chuckled. My mama bear was angry and pretty close to telling the man off. How dare he laugh at my child’s social issues! What an asshole. I got dangerously close to telling off another parent on the playground.

Finally after a while, my daughter wandered back over to the bench. She was noticeably upset. “What’s going on, darlin?” I asked her, trying to figure out what the problem had been without sounding too concerned and making matters worse. “No one wants to play Sneaking Cat…” My little girl told me.

(Photo: Rob Hainer/Shutterstock)

making friendsThe man beside me actually laughed at loud. While I still think he’s a jerk for giggling at my daughter’s misfortune, I was smirking just a bit in my head as well. Sneaking Cat is a superhero my daughter has created. We tell the stories of Sneaking Cat and have even drawn pictures of her adventures. I happen to think that the idea is pretty cool.

But not a single kid on that playground knew what my daughter was talking about. I could see how the kids would have been confused and dismissive of a little girl rambling on about something they didn’t know. “I’m sorry to hear that hun. Did you want to try playing something else? Maybe you’ll like what they’re playing?” I offered. This is when I learned the real problem of my daughter’s visit to the park. “No,” she told me, “They said I could play with them. But I told them that they had to be the bad guys and I was going to be the Sneaking Cat and put them in jail.”

It was all coming together. My daughter hadn’t just suggested a game the other kids didn’t know, she had told them exactly how they were to play it. She wasn’t looking for friends to play with, she was finding actors for her own movie in her head. No wonder the other little kids decided to run off and swing instead. My daughter was being bossy. Bossy doesn’t always win friends over.

I pointed out that sometimes friends have to give and take, have to compromise and play what everyone wants to play. My daughter wasn’t in the mood to hear it at the moment. “But I want to play Sneaking Cat,” she told me. At first, I was a little worried that this was going to become a serious issue.

Then, the next time we went to the park, I watched my daughter walk up to a group of girls and just ask what they were playing, if she could join. Of course, the little girls said, “Yes.” We had a nice trip to the park. And as I sat on the bench and watched my daughter play, I realized that those kids turning her down did more to teach her about compromise than I ever could. Social knowledge can’t really be lectured in to children, they just have to spend time together and figure it out.

We want to protect our children, and that includes making sure that no one is ever hurting their feelings. We want them to have friends and feel like they belong. We want all the things that we were striving for ourselves when we were in school. Unfortunately, social issues are something that individuals have to work through. Social hierarchies will happen without any input from the parents. Friendships will be made without any regard for the adults’ opinions. All we can do is sit back on that bench, hope things turn out for the best and maybe give a hug when things go wrong. Oh, and we can tell off the jerk at the park laughing at sad little kids. That’s still on my to-do list.

(Photo: Rob Hainer/Shutterstock)

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