PEARL 18

Friends

From the time our kids get off the knees of infancy and onto the land

legs of toddlerhood, they’re going to be around other kids — playing with
dolls, shooting baskets, swapping baseball cards, running in the
neighborhood. Our kids are going to make friends. That’s the good news.
As we know, friends are great for kids to have. The bad news is that often
we don’t like the friends they choose.
One of the biggest mistakes we parents make is getting into a control
battle with our kids over who their friends are. We’ll lose that one every
time. Because we can’t win that battle, we should keep our mouths shut
and take a different tack. We should concentrate on the areas we can
control.
We can offer our kids a choice: Pick friends we approve of and then
play with those friends at our house, or pick friends that we don’t approve
of and then not be allowed to bring them over. Or we can say, “Would
you like to have friends who really test your decision-making and
thinking skills, or would you rather have some who don’t pressure you so
much?”
When we try to change our kids’ relationships, it may damage our own
relationship with our children. Our kids rebel against our demands and
orders. Prohibiting our kids from playing with certain friends tells them
we are afraid the friends’ attitudes, beliefs, or habits will rub off. It also
tells our kids that they can’t do their own thinking. The result is usually
that the friends become more exciting and desirable. But we can tell them
what we think. Children cannot rebel against thoughts and opinions. In