Click or Clique: How Parents Can Help
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How can a parent help kids find other kids who “click” and stay away from the “cliques”? It starts way before the teen years. As with most things, helping kids develop the social skills and self-confidence needed to find a healthy friend group takes some parental effort. Good modeling, opportunities to develop healthy interests and relationships, and good values are the keys.

  • Model diversity in your own friendships. Talk about how knowing different kinds of people enriches your life in different ways.
  • Help your child develop good social skills. Kids who know how to be a good friend are kids who attract healthy friendships.
  • Foster empathy skills. Kids who can walk in another’s shoes are not likely to participate in hurting or bullying others. (See: Manners to Empathy: Faking it is a place to Start.)
  • Follow your kid’s lead in finding the activity or sport that they are passionate about. Good friendships often develop from participating in a shared interest.
  • Help your child develop a mind of his or her own. Kids who have confidence in their own values are less likely to fall in with the crowd. Encourage assertiveness about the things that matter.
  • If your child does fall into a clique, don’t be critical of the “friends.” Do be critical of any mean behavior. Go to the root of the problem and talk to your young person about what she or he is getting out of being in a group that won’t let people be who they are and whose popularity depends on putting other people down.

 

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2008/click-or-clique-positive-and-negative-teen-social-groups/2/

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