A couple of weeks ago I wrote about teenage cliques and how painful they can be. That blog was spurred by my daughter not getting invited to a birthday party. At the time I encouraged her to ask her friend about it. I really didn’t want her to assume the worst but she did.
Just a couple of days ago she announced that she was no longer mad at her friend. As it turned out, she had the invitation but kept forgetting to give it to my daughter. In her world everything was fine again.
It bothered me, however. One thing I have learned in my own friendships is that you should never make assumptions. I have been wrong on many occasions when I made assumptions about things. You can end up feeling a bit foolish and even cause the destruction of a friendship.
With all of the drama that has been going on recently with her friends, I decided it was time to teach my daughter about friendships. I recognize that these years are probably the most difficult and sometimes most painful when it comes to dealing with friendships. Although with girls it tends to be more complicated, I have even found it to happen with boys.
My own 16-year-old son ended a friendship over a girl. It happened almost two years ago and even though the girl is no longer in the picture, the friendship has never been restored. That really saddens me.
Let’s face it, girls can be very catty. They get upset over what appears to us to be very minor things. However in their world everything is so much bigger. We have to recognize that when we are trying to teach our teens about friendships. What we can so easily dismiss, they really can’t.
Feelings in friendships can be very strong so one of the things I talked to my daughter about was how we can’t judge everything on feelings. They are real and they may be strong but they are not always reliable. She felt strongly that she had been rejected but she was wrong.
Another issue that came up was when she found out that two particular girls had also been invited to the party. Her reply was, “Yuck” which I promptly told her was not nice. Once again she is making assumptions about these girls. I told her that she needs to give them a chance. You just never know who will end up becoming a very good friend.
Teaching teens about friendships can be tricky. That’s why it’s important that we as adults understand what it means to have a healthy one. If we are not being a good friend, then we certainly can’t teach our teens how to be one.
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