by Laura Golden Bellotti
On the classic 60’s TV show Leave It to Beaver, Beaver Cleaver’s older brother Wally had a friend who was as charming as a dancing snake — whenever he was in the presence of Wally’s parents.
Eddie Haskell seemed to have a guilty grin permanently plastered on his face. “How are you today, Mrs. Cleaver? My, but it’s a beautiful day today, isn’t it Mrs. Cleaver?” he would inquire with ingratiating politeness. But as soon as an authority figure’s back was turned, Eddie made a beeline for trouble. Just being within slingshot distance of Eddie Haskell meant Wally and Beaver were about to do something forbidden.
Does your child have an Eddie Haskell-esque pal, someone you sense can’t help but lead your upstanding son or daughter down the wrong path? If so, should you do whatever you can to let your child choose his or her own friends, even if those choices spell trouble?
According to Betty Bardige, PhD, author of Your Child at Play — Five to Eight Years: Building Friendships, Expanding Interests, and Resolving Conflicts (Newmarket Press, $17.95), unless there’s a real threat of danger, it’s best to let children choose the friends they enjoy. “I find it hard to write off any child,” she says. “Sometimes the most popular playmates are those kids with the most daring or the greatest imagination, and such children can be less than perfect angels.”
Trying New Roles
She offers as an example the friendship between the three 6-year-old Kates: Kate, Katie and Kaitlin. Kate and Katie are very much alike — sunny, well-behaved and nurturing toward others. Kaitlin, however, is brash, bright and precocious. Her swearing and aggressive personality often make the moms of the other two Kates cringe.
But Kate and Katie love being around Kaitlin because they get to give up their “goody-goody” personalities for an afternoon and try on a new role. According to Bardige, “Interacting with all kinds of people helps children get along on the playground and in life. A parent’s concern should be if her child is in over his head. That’s when you have to step in and help.”
To monitor this, parents need to be aware — but not rigid. Seeking to provide the best environment for their kids, many parents take a micromanaging approach to friendships. One mother, for example, says that she tries to dissuade her daughter from hanging out with the less scholastically ambitious kids in her school. She peruses her daughter’s school newsletter to see who made the honor roll, then encourages her to make friends with these high achievers.
But psychologist and parent educator Wendy Mogel, PhD, author of The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-reliant Children (Scribner, $14.99), believes parents should learn to tolerate their child’s less-than-perfect friends. “We should avoid creating a ‘cruise ship’ environment for our kids — a childhood where there are no waves. Throughout their lives, our kids are going to have teachers and co-workers and bosses who aren’t perfect. It’s important to learn how to handle things on your own.”
According to Mogel, bossy or insensitive friends provide your child with an opportunity to stand up for herself; friends with an outlook that is different from you child’s can help her learn to negotiate; quirky or eccentric friends teach your child tolerance.
Rather than focusing on his friend’s “imperfections,” Mogel suggests, show your child that you appreciate his taste in friends by finding something positive to say about a particular pal. “It’s so nice having Max around the house — he’s so full of life,” will validate your son’s sense of judgment much more than, “Why can’t you pick a friend who’s not so obnoxious and rowdy?”
Drawing the Line
If your daughter seems exuberant and happy after she’s been with a certain buddy, that’s a good sign. If your son is so sugared-and-videogamed-out that he has an unwholesome gleam in his eye every time he visits a particular friend’s house, it might be time to tell him he can’t go to that friend’s house any more.
How do you know when your child is “in over her head”?nExperts say it’s important to consider the degree of “trouble” that certain friendships might cause. The following are some common behaviors — ranging from bad to serious trouble — that parents of 6- to 10-year-olds might notice in their children’s less-than-ideal friends:
• Watching too much TV or overindulging in videogames
• Swearing
• Being mean to other children
• Disregarding authority figures
• Being disdainful of school
• Being sexually precocious
• Playing violently or dangerously
Kate’s mom, for example, had to step in and tell her daughter, “We don’t use language like that” when she heard her mimicking the racy lines from a movie Kaitlin had seen and parroted — a film Kate’s mother would never have allowed her to see.
Sticky Situations
What about those sticky situations in which your child’s friend is introducing behaviors you strongly disapprove of? Effective ways to deal with such unwanted, friend-influenced situations include:
• Keep the relationship where you can watch it.
• Confine the play dates to your house or to a public place if you don’t approve of the rules (or lack thereof) at a friend’s house.
• If the behavior isn’t in the “worst” category, say what you need to say and inject a bit of humor. Bardige suggests, “If your child and the influential friend constantly tease another child, you might say, ‘All right, teasing is hereby evicted from this house. ’”
• Tell the friend in a straightforward way what your rules are. With moderately bad behavior, be direct. If you don’t allow swearing and your child’s friend curses a blue streak, simply say, “We don’t allow swearing in our home. Thanks for respecting that, Justin.”
In the case of violent or sexually precocious behavior, indicating severe problems, you might have to intervene with your child’s friend’s parents.
Yet experts agree that it’s best to avoid super-controlling your children’s friendships unless they turn into truly dangerous liaisons. When you give up some control and let kids be in charge of choosing their friends, you enable your kids to learn about themselves, relationships and life.
Laura Golden Bellotti is a freelance writer.