Wanted: friendship SatNav for kids

Madeleine Thompson - 8 Sep 14

Today I watched from my window a group of children playing. They live in the houses around me and they range in age from 4 to around 11. They seem to be an inclusive and welcoming group. But recently I have seen something different within this group. A young girl without siblings, has joined them after sometime wanting to play with them. She appears shy and very wanting of their acceptance and admiration. And in that, they seem to recognise a vulnerability and treat her differently. They treat her with less regard and it appears as if they are always keeping her at a distance. They wait to be approached, she does the approaching.

I think I recognise this because I have been that girl. When I was young I was a shy child who grew into a shy and awkward teenager. And I was the one who so desperately wanted to be liked and who sat on the outside of friendship groups.

My daughter is a bubbly, confident, fun-loving two year old girl who loves everything about life and seems already to be a natural free spirit. Despite this, I see in her signs of a shyness and I worry that she will be like me. Shyness in itself is no bad thing and I welcome that she has a natural caution around people she doesn’t know, but I worry more for how it will affect her when she is at school with other children who may mistake her shyness for vulnerability and take advantage.

I see the shyness and caution come out when we are around other children, for example at the park, when she steps back from the equipment to let them play before she does. I am a firm believer in not forcing her to do anything she does not feel comfortable doing so I help to encourage her when I feel she wants to carry on and to reinforce to her that she has every right to play as the other children do, but I help her also to come away from the situation if she is not happy.

I suppose this is less of a feature article, and more of an open question to Selfish Mother writers and readers…

How can we help our children to have the strength to navigate friendships and non-friendships without losing who they are and without feeling they are in some way ‘wrong’ because they do not fit the same mould as everybody else; to let them know and believe that they have their place in this world just as much as the next child?

I wonder how we can protect children from the hurt that comes with childhood cliques or if it is simply an inevitable part of childhood, which we just have to help them manage as it happens.

And, I also wonder… how we can encourage their quiet confidence to come out without making them feel that shyness, or them feeling that being reserved is a negative trait because we live in world where often those who shout the loudest are listened to first?

These are the questions that enter my head sporadically and which I don’t yet have answers. I welcome advice/thoughts/sound bites from others; parents and non-parents as it takes a village to raise a child – or an online group of mothers…!

Madeleine Thompson

I am mum to my little chicks, Aisha, 6 and Abel, 4. Originally from Yorkshire, UK, I now live in a little town in the North West. By day, I work for myself as a freelance PA. By night, I indulge my passion for writing.

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