Many of us have this idyllic vision of childhood friends—we picture our child wandering off into the field hand-in-hand with a best friend—happy, giggling, and best friends forever. The reality, however, is that children argue and fight too. Inviting a friend over for a play date can turn into a bicker-fest. As the parent in charge, is there anything we can do to cut back on the arguing or help our child learn how to communicate in other ways?
First of all, arguing is not all bad. Sometimes, our child is working out all sorts of things in those arguments with a friend—identity, communication, negotiation, etc. Learning how to argue and how to discuss and debate differences is an important social skill. This doesn’t mean that we as the parents want to listen to all those lessons going on!
If a child is overly-argumentative, however, and it appears that this is the ONLY way that he or she is communicating, then there are probably other issues going on. As the parent, we have to look at the dynamic between the children, whether or not there are fears, anxieties, control issues, etc. going on for either child, and look for any other causes or influences. Sometimes it is simply chemistry while other times there are issues going for our child that are keeping her from being able to enjoy someone else’s company.
We can set limits and expectations and guide our child in learning how to get along without arguing, but we will need to be addressing the root cause as well. Sometimes, we will not need to intervene and just trust in the process while at other times, we will need to step in and help our child learn through the disagreement. It is important to look at the whole picture and not simply blame the other child or assume that the arguments mean nothing