 parents, carers or other supporting adults, how can we help our teens or our tweens to navigate those stormy stormy seas of friendship? That's what we're going to be looking at in today's episode, let's dive straight in. So welcome to the world of frenemies, cliques and utter frustration and confusion as we try to understand what on earth is going on with our children's friendships day to day. This is tricky. I don't know if I find it more tricky because I'm autistic or if it's just really hard but I do get lots and lots of people asking me for questions and advice about this. So in today's episode of the podcast we're going to explore just a few ideas to help you as a parent or a carer or another supporting adult just to try and find your way through with this little bit and I'm sorry it won't give you all the answers but I think and I hope it will give you some good jumping off points for thinking about how best to support your child crucially in a way that won't damage your relationship with them and won't kind of jeopardize their future relationships with their friends as well because one of the things we have to remember with our kids is they're still learning as they are entering adolescence they can be quite hot headed and impulsive that's part of what happens with our brain development at that age and sometimes they can make some decisions that aren't ideal and we can help them to perhaps be a little kinder make some slightly different choices keep doors open build rather than burn bridges all that kind of thing but again this can all be quite tricky because they might ask for advice sometimes often they won't sometimes we want to give it and sometimes we don't and it's all tricky anyway let's let's let's crack on so the first thing that I wanted to think about I'm going to go through sort of five different ideas and the first idea is the idea of really just allowing your teenager to talk so your most important job as the adult in this scenario isn't to be some kind of like oracle or guru and know all the answers to the questions that'd be lovely but we don't and but actually your job is to provide a safe space and a bit of a sounding board for your child to begin to explore this stuff for themselves really ultimately we need to get to a point where your kid can work out some suggestions of ways forward for themselves and confidently and appropriately take those steps we don't know the answers because we're not inside their head and we haven't lived that relationship and if we always tell them what to do even if they were to follow our advice this is not a long-term strategy then what happens on the day that we're not there or when they leave home or you know we've got to enable rather than do so we need to provide a safe space a bit of a sounding board for our child so it's about allowing them to talk rather than us doing the talking and I feel like this is something I return too often this is not just the case when it comes to friendships this is just generally one of our really really big jobs as an adult supporting children is giving kids space to tell their story to explore their ideas to develop their potential responses and I always seem to be just talking at you when I'm saying we need to provide space for them to talk the thing I dare my defence here this is not a very two-way medium I mean I love it when you're here to interact with me and we should do some more Q&As and stuff again and I'll definitely look to book that in but yeah this one you know I could sit here and wait for a while but the the answers they're just not very forthcoming guys go where are you where are you so as a parent we're going to let the kids talk we're going to do things like listen to understand rather than to respond so we're listening we're not thinking about what am I going to say next and if you notice yourself when you're listening that's often where our thoughts are going in almost any conversation we're thinking ah right what I need to say next is and you're focused in on what you're going to say when you're going to say it how you're going to say it and it's all about you and what you have to say rather than actually hearing anymore what the person who's speaking is saying you can practice this skill listening to understanding any conversation anytime ever it particularly matters when you are working with a child who's working through some really thorny stuff so they've got things that they want to explore they've got things that they're trying to understand they need the chance to really talk about these things and if we're going to really engage in that conversation we've got to try and understand as well and we're not going to do that if we're constantly thinking about what am I going to say next just forget what you're going to say you're going to say relatively little probably so just forget about that altogether and instead just listen to understand really think about what is it that they're saying what is it that they're feeling what's going on for them what must that be like be really curious try to understand their experience right now without judgment without jumping to solution just trying to kind of get it the thing we can do here is to roll with the silence so I talk about this all the time again I feel like I come back to this sort of like core set of skills and listening really is one of them rolling with the silence is about just acknowledging that sometimes in these conversations particularly when a child is grappling with tough stuff they're trying to tell their story maybe for the first time and they haven't yet got the words for it or there's this whole bunch of noise in their head that they're trying to like sort out so that they can explain it or maybe this is provoking some pretty big feelings for them and they just need a moment to calm things down there's all sorts of reasons why that conversation might not absolutely flow continuously all the time sometimes we just need a moment and that's okay so just allow that to happen allow the silence to happen this is easier if you're doing something alongside your child or you're like driving together or you're walking and talking those silences don't feel that awkward if you're just sat the silences can feel big and you might feel really tempted to jump in I actually like always will wear a watch and I'll look at my watch and I will think I'm going to allow a minute to pass before I jump in and minutes are really long time in silence but for you it's a long time because you'll start they're going oh this is kind of awkward the tumbleweeds going by la la la la your child if they've got like 84,000 things going around their head or they're kind of panicking a bit and they're trying to calm down that minute will go by really quite quickly so it feels awkward for you but for them it's it's often really helpful so just roll with the silence if you don't jump in often they will and this is meant to be a conversation led by them ask your open questions be curious just every question that you have ask it try to understand their experience by just asking really thought-provoking questions their friendships what's going on in their lives is really fascinating baffling for me anyway but fascinating and they often will have like points of view a bit different than you might have or just the way of approaching and doing things might be different entirely than when you were younger like just things move on and things change and attitudes and cultures change and so just get curious is that is that is that normal to other people act like that what your friend said is that is that something that people say why would they say that what do you think they were thinking when they said that how do you think it made them feel when you did x what do you think would happen next if you did do the thing you're saying you're going to do you know just just ask all the questions there are no silly questions here make sure that you're asking with a spirit of curiosity rather than judgment your child will shut down right away if they think that they're being judged but yeah just get curious ask later questions and give them plenty of space and time to find the right words again that's about going with the silence a little bit giving them space don't be trying to finish their sentences don't be jumping in and assuming you know what they're going to say even if you think you know what the sentence is that they're trying to get to unless this is a child that you support often or it's your own child and you are used to communicating in a way where you help to fill in the gaps because there's a um a particular sort of issue there but in most cases even where there is some sort of language today or cognitive issue or your child struggles with speaking space and understanding is a more helpful thing for them than filling in the gaps which can often be sort of disempowering and making them think they can't do this and we don't always fill the gaps in right either so giving them space and time to find the right words for themselves is is helpful it can be frustrating because maybe you want the conversation to move on and and that's something i'd say right from the beginning really is that we need to just accept this conversation might not be fast but it's really important they might find that they need to pick over the same things again and again and again and that's okay while your child's trying to make sense of something that's happened particularly if this is something that feels really big in their world perhaps they feel I don't know betrayed by a friend and it might not seem big to you what's happened but to them it might be really massive and you might find they get back over and over and over it and that again that's kind of human nature for us to kind of revisit things from different angles and to explore it you might want to stop it if they're literally going over the same ground and nothing is being achieved and perhaps it's really upsetting them but if they're still learning from this if they're still exploring it if there's still quite a lot that they don't understand it's quite a normal and healthy thing so if they keep circling back to the same thing that that sort of suggests this is something to dive deeper ask more questions about it get deeper get more inquisitive look at it from different points of view and the other thing here is don't feel like you got fixed stuff you're not here to make this all better right now in the beginning you're just here to let them talk you're only gonna give advice if they ask for it and then you will do so with caution sometimes your child will say what do you think I should do and I would normally respond to that with the question right what do you think that I think that you should do or something something I'd rather have them play the first chip than me because they often have got a bit of an idea either about what they think we're gonna say what they think we should say or what they'd like us to say or about what they think should happen next and actually it's much better if they're able to lay their cards on the table and explore with us some of the possible solutions rather than us us diving right in so we don't have to fix things at this point we're we're just all about letting them talk and listening so our first little chunk was all about letting your teen or tween I really hate the phrase tween talk next absolute cardinal rule never break this one never ever ever put your child's friends down we're not going to join our child in saying mean unkind questionable things about their friends no matter how much they try to encourage us to do so the reason for this is there is nothing as predictable about teenage friendships as their unpredictability and the person who is enemy number one today may well be bff best friend forever tomorrow so if we've been joined in the slagging match on this person today and then suddenly they're their best friend forever tomorrow and they're around at our house and our child is kind of gently reminding us well remember yesterday when you said she was a two-faced cow it's not ideal let's be honest this also for what it's worth will be true of romantic relationships also and this is a rule I use in life with my adult friends too if they go through a rough patch with a partner I try not to say mean or unkind things I might give them the space to explore that for themselves but again I've had plenty of experiences of adults who have been very unsure about our relationship and then suddenly it's all back on and you've said some stuff that you can't take back the other thing is even at the point at which the friend is public enemy number one and they are saying unkind things about this friend if you join in sometimes you'll find that they'll just turn and be like why are you saying that about Amy and they'll get like not very happy about it basically so it's it's okay for you to listen and we might think about how we're kind with our words and some of those other things but it's okay for you to listen and to create a space where they're exploring their big feelings about their friendships but I really would advise not joining in and another thing here is that sometimes our kids even though today they're not such great friends with this person sometimes our put downs of that other person can be taken quite personally because on a different day they might be quite closely enmeshed and you know how it is when you get to be really close friends with people you're a we rather than an I aren't you and a put down of a friend can feel like a put down of you and so yeah just just go really really steady here and the other thing just more generally that we might think of here in life not just in this conversation but a little bit more broadly is just be thinking about as a person how well do you role model like kindness and compassion when discussing your friends and theirs actually as well because one of the things you will observe may observe with a child and their friendships is that it can be very hot and cold and there are some quite big feelings sometimes the way that our kids will talk about other kids might not be the kindest and that's not a great kind of bedrock for future friendship and it's just not always really nice and we should then just maybe think well if we'd like them to talk about people even people they're not getting on with right now in a slightly more kind of considered or compassionate way what are we doing to role model how to do that and you might think also about how you talk about kind of disagreements and challenges that you're having in your own relationships and thinking about sometimes exploring them with your kids as well I sometimes ask my kids for advice on this stuff and they often have some really good ideas some of the best conversations that I've had about friendship and relationships with my kids have been when I've been exploring an issue with one of mine and I've taken it to them and I've asked their advice and we've had really interesting conversations and more often than not it will at some point turn around to them being like actually I've had something similar with my friend and maybe we can explore that as well and and we'll go there too but bringing your own stuff in here can be a bit of a sign of trust helps them to realise you're human too and you kind of get it and you've been there and it helps them to form their thinking too because when we have a problem of our own it can sometimes be really hard to see our way through and the emotions are really high and it seems completely intractable someone else's problem teens in particular often know exactly what one should do they know all the answers which is great I love their confidence their compassion their impulsivity sometimes and they'll often actually have some really good suggestions but that clarity of thought that comes when it's someone else's problem can be super super helpful you can also use that to turn things around and say well what would your friend suggest or what would you suggest to a friend in this situation to try and step outside and provide that clarity of thinking but so so so far we're going to let them talk we're never going to put their friends down next thing I'd suggest is to try and find out what they hope will happen next so what your child or the child you're supporting hopes is going to happen next in this situation now this is a really helpful and thought-provoking question to be asked and will really help the conversation go a little bit deeper but it will also help to ensure that the conversation is taking things in the right direction because sometimes the answer to this question will surprise you because you might for example assume that when your child comes to you saying they've fallen out with a friend that they hope that what will happen next is that they can make friends again and they can hang out as normal tomorrow and it might be if you ask them what do you hope will happen next they might say do you know what I'm actually really really tired of how this friendship is going round and round and round in circles and I'd actually really like to have a little bit of space from them for a few weeks and spend a bit more time with person x instead and maybe that's not an outcome you were expecting and so that might not have been the one that you were kind of trying to lead towards in any sort of suggestions or directing the conversation that you were taking with your child so actually knowing what are our goals here um can help us to get there so understanding your child's hopes wishes aims of what they want to happen next with this friendship or they're hoping to get from this conversation what they're hoping will happen today tomorrow with their friend super super helpful it's it's really hard to work with totally undefined goals but once we actually know what we want then we can start to be curious about well how would we make that happen what would that look like what's in the way of that happening what do we need to overcome you can ask like little questions to get you closer and help understand a bit more from the child's point of view what might help like what do you think would take you a little bit closer to that or what's a tiny step that might help for example and breaking things down into really tiny steps can make it feel more doable so if your child you know when you say what do you hope will happen next if what they're saying is a sort of a big far off lofty aim that for you feels about a hundred steps away from where we are right now because perhaps things are totally broken down and they're like I just want to be best friends forever again um then we might think okay well the first thing we're going to need to do is get it so that your friend is happy to be in the same room as you again or you're happy to be in the same room as them again what would that take and we want to just break things down as we do so often in in the work with our children into the tiniest possible steps and just think what's a doable next step here and if as you begin to explore this with your child and you say what do you want to happen next and they're like I don't know because they might not they might just be really confused or unsure I don't know what the options are if that's not a helpful line of inquiry and and sometimes you'll hit a brick wall with it then what might be more helpful is to flip that and say okay what do you want not to happen because if they don't know what they do want to happen often they'll have some pretty clear ideas about what they do not want to happen so you might explore that instead similarly next I'd encourage you and your child to be looking inwards as well as outwards so sometimes the problem that your child is facing is to do with the situation and there are steps that we can take to change how things are but sometimes the problem is actually more about how we feel about things and the thing that actually needs to change is how we feel and how we respond to what's happening rather than actually changing the situation itself so sometimes essentially we sort of become part of the problem and this isn't about kind of essentially shift everything round and sort of saying to your teen do you know what this is all your fault it's just about acknowledging that sometimes we've got really big and mixed up feelings or that things have fundamentally changed and that things I don't know maybe someone else has moved on and that relationship isn't going to be as it was once and that we sort of just need to come to a peace with that or you know there's lots of different things here where it can be our feelings that are getting in the way and our response to a situation rather than the situation itself and in this sort of area of exploration and questioning is absolutely crucial that your kid knows that you are on their team and you're just being really curious and explorative and you're not judging them and you're not kind of upset or angry with how they're thinking or feeling we're just noticing I suppose sometimes that maybe the situation can't always change but sometimes we can begin to think about can we explore how we feel about that and try to approach it with a slightly different mindset so you can kind of wonder aloud about this and just think you know is it the situation that needs to change or is it how we're feeling about it that needs to change and you can step into the friends shoes as well and explore this from the other point of view you know do you think things actually need to change or do you think it's just you know Tim's feelings about it that need to kind of move on you can carefully explore with your teen whether there's anything that they're doing that's kind of exacerbating things which often can be the case when we explore it a bit more deeply and this is about understanding things from multiple points of view thinking about how friends might feel about the things that your teen is saying and doing and again trying really hard to make sure that they see that you are exploring this with love with compassion with kindness and not with judgment you're just curious to try and understand really what's going on from many points of view but it can be helpful to pinpoint if there are things that they're doing that are exacerbating things particularly if you find that these cycles are happening again and again and again and whilst you know we always want to be our child's champion actually if they are struggling with friendship issues which they're kind of triggering perhaps unknowingly identifying helping them to explore what it is that keeps making this happen could really help them to begin to break some of those cycles so you might get curious about some of those things if there's certain times moments things they say or do that seem to end less well each time let's get curious about that and why that is and why this friend might respond badly to that and whether that's an issue with what they're doing or with how the friend's interpreting it with other friends might feel differently about that we're just not hanging out with the right people yet or so many things to explore do think about within the the situation what can be changed what can't be changed when things cannot be changed how we tolerate that so sometimes there are things that just have changed and things have moved on around your child and they don't like that and they want things to be back how they were this can happen particularly after like a transition either just transition of friendships people have changed who they're hanging out with or perhaps there's been a change of class or school and your child might look back misty-eyed to a time when they hung out with people in a different way and it might just not be possible to go back to those times we just need to think well how do we manage that how do we sit with that how do we tolerate those things that feel kind of awkward and a bit sad for us and you can explore how you manage that as well and it can always be helpful stepping into the shoes of others as well so just explore this from multiple points of view not saying that your child is wrong and the other people are right but just really getting curious about what this looks like from the points of view of others another thing I will sometimes do in this situation is look to the wisdom of the staff in school who deal with these issues all day every day and if there's a particular member of staff that you know your child trusts actually say what do you think they would advise in this situation what would Mrs Jones say right now if you were talking to her about this or has she given you any advice on this have you spoken to her about it what did she think you should do and that can be helpful particularly remembering that poor Mrs Jones who may have heard these issues a thousand times by now probably knows all of the children involved and the wider culture and context better than we ever could because she's there all day every day but as I say throughout all of this key thing your kid has got to know that you are on their team I was going to say on their side and actually that makes it sound like we're taking sides so if there's an argument for example that we're like family on their side and they need to know that we'll champion them but that actually we also need to try and bring that slightly wider perspective and help them to see things from different points of view so we're on their team we love them unconditionally even if they've done something really questionable in their friendship we're still on their team and we are trying to explore this with compassion and care not judgment that really matters they will shut down if they feel they're being judged okay and then finally I would encourage you just to check in regularly with your team so not just when these conversations are actually happening we've been thinking about the nature that conversation might take but just more generally check in often and without too much judgment actually so just taking a moment to regularly check in with your team find out how things are going reassure them that you're here if they do want to talk about stuff and that you trust them and you care about them and if there's difficult stuff even if they've done something wrong or questionable that you're not going to judge them you will still love them you're here to listen and care and help and just just letting them know that regularly can be really really helpful you might actually pick almost a time that you do this regularly so this can work really well perhaps there's a moment in the day or in the week when you and your team might have a couple of minutes where you could have those sorts of conversations often if you're walking somewhere driving somewhere perhaps you're doing the endless taxi driving duties of a parent or carer this might be a moment just to check in oh how are things going with Mohammed now has that friendship sort of sorted itself out a bit or or even just a much more open question how are things going at the moment it doesn't have to be really precise and if you have regular times when you check in on this stuff then your kid will get to know these are moments when they could open up to you when they've got you and you're undivided attention if they wanted to if you do kind of commute either on foot or on train or bus or car whatever with your child those kind of community journeys can be particularly great moments for these kinds of conversations because there's nothing else that you need to be doing your child will not feel like your attention is about to be taken elsewhere you will not be trying to get on with a hundred other things and also because you're often sort of side by side rather than that kind of very confrontational face to face and the conversation might flow a little bit more readily as well so those can be good moments for those check-ins sometimes when you check in with your kid they'll have absolutely nothing to say and that's fine like that's fine just asking regularly means that the day when they read something on their mind they've got the opportunity to start that conversation should they wish to and sometimes they say no do you know what it's going okay and that's great that's lovely they know that we care they know that we're here if they need us and that's fab remind them regularly that you love them unconditionally you can't tell them that you love them enough and they need to know that their love is not conditional that you are not judging them on how they behave that even if they get it wrong you will still love them and you will still support them and help them to navigate things and the other thing is just to make sure that you do sort of keep that door open so you might be asking regularly how are things going is everything okay and they're going yeah yeah it's fine and you might feel like there's something there but they don't feel quite ready to talk about it so what you might do here is think about different ways to help to open that door so if you feel that you're being sort of pushed away or they're becoming a bit isolated or there's something they're not quite opening up about I found like the occasional text might really help so you might just just drop them a text reminding them that you care about them letting them know if there's anything they want to talk about they can do I found in particular one of my daughters finds it much easier to start those conversations via text and I get that it can be hard to find the words and be brave enough to talk out loud about stuff that feels really really big to you but being able to think really carefully about the words you put in a text to start that conversation can really help and we'll sometimes have a conversation back and forth via whatsapp within the same house for a little while before she's like okay let's actually just have a chat about this it will usually get to a point where I'll go do you want a hug and that'll be the point in which perhaps then we begin to really talk about it but you'll find ways in with your child and it's about thinking about how to let them know that you're there that you care and creating an environment where they feel able to start the conversation if they want to so I hope there were some helpful ideas in there I kind of summarise them into some little questions that we can ask ourselves that sort of takes all those themes that we looked at today so these are so is your your your plenary um these these questions you can use just to explore I don't know different ways of doing it with your teens so first of all how can you let your teen know that you're listening to them with your whole self so when you're you're doing that listening thing what can you do in what you say how you sit how you act to let them know that you're really listening with your whole self because being heard is such a powerful thing for a child and you learn a lot when you really listen so how can you let your teen know that you're listening to them with your whole self number two biggie do you role model kindness and compassion in your friendships maybe maybe not remember children are great imitators so let's give them something good to imitate number three what questions might help your teen to consider how they'd like things to be so that whole question of what do they want to happen next what questions might help you to explore that with your child because until you know where they're trying to get to really really hard for either of you to navigate there number four how can you help your teen see different viewpoints without them seeing you as disloyal so this is stepping into the shoes of the other people involved in the situation without them thinking that you're taking sides with someone else how can you do that sensitively and kindly and non-judgmentally helping your teen see multiple points of view but them knowing that you're always on their team and then finally how can you communicate with your teen if they're not very open to talking do you have other methods of trying to open that door instead are the other ways that you can be with them communicate with them encourage the start of that communication so that you're able to explore these things so we go that was much more than i thought it would be i didn't know how much i had to say on this topic until i started talking it's a big issue in our house i have two girls and friendships are really challenging and i find them particularly challenging as an autistic parent of neurodiverse kids and maybe another time we should specifically explore in one of these episodes about what friendship looks like for neurodiverse kids and and how we can support that if that would be helpful let me know on the socials and i'll have a think about it and plan it in as ever do drop me a line with your ideas for future episodes things you'd like me to be talking to you about other resources you'd like to see me creating and if you're not already do do consider supporting me over on Patreon if you'd like to so i'm trying to create a lot more freely available content for everyone at the moment and particularly lots more for parents and carers and other supporting adults for children and young people and one of the ways i'm trying to make that sustainable in the long term and it is going to take a long time is to build up a lovely community over on Patreon which is somewhere where you can pay like a pound a month or you can pay more if you want to just to essentially support the work that i'm doing it does give you access to stuff early and to additional things and all that sort of stuff but i kind of i'm quite philanthropic and i don't really want people not to get access to stuff because they haven't got a pound a month so in all honesty you don't get loads and loads and loads of extra stuff other than essentially you see things a bit early and you get a bit more of personal stuff from me so i write a bit more personal stuff in there yeah really it's just some people want to support what i'm doing and that's somewhere you can do it anyway i'll stop prattling on it's now uh yeah the hefty late time of five to five in the morning i've got much much work to do and uh i will join you again on the next podcast thank you so much for all that you are doing for the children in your lives i hope that you have a fantastic day take care until next time over and out