Month: April 2017

  • Can The Adults’ Friendship Survive After The Children’s Friendship Ends?

    Two questions came in recently dealing with children’s friendship dilemmas when the parents are good friends. Should the parents get involved? Can the adults’ friendship remain intact even if the kids’ friendship does not? Since the questions are short, Nina included both.

    children's friendship

    Do you have a question for Nina? Use our anonymous form. You can read Nina’s answers to past questions here.

    Dear Nina,

    My “tweenaged” daughter has a friend who has repeatedly been less than kind. My daughter has told the girl how she feels on at least two occasions. I have encouraged my daughter to try to help her friend understand how she feels if she wants the friendship to last.

    Here’s the complicated part. I consider the girl’s mom a friend. Do I talk to my friend with the hope that she can help her daughter think more about my daughter’s feelings? Do I advise my daughter to put space between her and someone who continues to treat her poorly? Do I just treat my friendship with the mom separately? I tend to not avoid things, but this feels tricky because it is not just my relationship, it is also my daughter’s.

    Signed,

    Should My Friend and I Help Our Daughters?

    Dear Nina,

    How do you maintain a friendship with someone when the children’s friendship has ended? I have dealt with this a lot over the years, but have a particularly tough one right now as the mom is one of my closest friends and her daughter is being awful to my daughter now. (They are in high school and were best friends until recently.)

    Signed,

    I Don’t Want to Lose My Friend

     

    Dear fellow moms,

    My initial instinct in response to the general question of whether a friendship can survive the children’s friendship issues is YES. My more nuanced answer is that it depends on the strength of that adult relationship and the maturity of the two women involved.

    If the feelings towards an adult friend are going to imitate the ups and downs of the adolescents involved, then that does not bode well for the adult friendship. We survived the volatile social norms of the tween and teenage years once already so why would we want to go through it all again? If we can’t be friends with someone when the kids aren’t getting long, perhaps that suggests boundary issues between us and our own children, as in we are too wrapped up in our kids’ experiences rather than allowing them to have their own, yes, bad feelings. I believe in helping kids learn to handle their social situations with guidance, but not with a full takeover where parents mirror the kids’ reactions.

    Try Hard Not To Be a “Wave Rider”

    I know it’s tempting to ride the waves with our kids because we hate to see them feeling left out or mistreated. But if we are also riding the waves, then who is standing steady on the shore ready to give sound advice?

    As for what kind of advice to give your daughter when her friend’s mom is your good friend, I say it shouldn’t differ at all from the advice you’d give her if the other parents were strangers. Listen carefully, don’t assign blame, and help your daughter learn how to stand up for herself while treating the next person with dignity. This can take an entire lifetime!

    I’m 40, and I still ask my mom’s advice on relationships from time to time. Why do I still go to my mom? Because she was not a wave-rider when I was a teenager. I knew her take on a situation would be balanced and helpful and not simply an echo of what I might get from my own friends.

    I love how the first letter worded the advice she was considering for her daughter: “Do I advise my daughter to put space between her and someone who continues to treat her poorly?” That expression “put space” is so perfect because it is so much less dramatic and traumatic than ending a friendship and it allows time for issues to work themselves out.

    We certainly don’t want our kids getting treated badly just because we like the other kid’s parents. At the same time, I think it’s safe to assume that the other mom is getting a different story from her own daughter and it’s a good idea to acknowledge (especially to ourselves) that there are two sides to most stories. I prefer the idea of the adult friends not getting involved directly with the children’s friendship drama because it’s not the parents’ right or business to divulge each other’s daughter’s stories.

    However, not getting involved in the drama does not mean ignoring the fact that it’s happening. I think the two moms can even acknowledge that their girls are going through a rough time and that the kids’ friendship may not survive. If the adults can name the possibility of such an outcome and detach themselves before it happens, then I don’t see why the adult friendship needs to change. It may take one or two active conversations between the adults where a decision is made that they will remain friends no matter what happens with the kids.

    My kids have had friendship issues here and there, including with the kids of my friends, but none have ever escalated to the point of the children’s friendships completely ending. I consulted some friends of mine who have been closer to the situations described in the two letters.

    The Most Important Friendships Will Endure

    I knew that my friend Julie Burton, author of The Self-Care Solution: A Modern Mother’s Must-Have Guide to Health and Well-Being, had dealt with a situation like this before.

    She said, “It can be really difficult, and sometimes impossible to maintain the friendship at least while kids are struggling. It’s one thing if the kids just drift apart but remain cordial (this has happened with a handful of my close friends and our children), but if your friend’s child is being hurtful to your child (or maybe your child is the culprit), your alliance almost always will be with your child, and therefore things can get tricky between moms. The most important thing I have learned over the past 22 years of managing these types of situations and relationships is that the friendships that mean the most to you—the ones that are supportive, respectful, and fulfilling—will stand the test of time and some bumps along the road, including kid-related conflicts.”

    Kathleen, another woman I know and respect with older kids also had good advice. “I have had friendships survive and flourish even if our children are no longer friends, but we acknowledged that our children were going in different directions. We each were able to feel awful, to try not to judge, to still love each other’s kids, and to reframe the friendship. You have to really want it, but it can be worth it. And one of the unanticipated outcomes is that sometimes, the kids become young adults and become friends again. But that is not the goal. The goal is to keep someone you enjoy and connect with in your life, as a person with the same values and who makes you laugh and the friendship is defined by you, not your kids.”

    The last person I consulted is my own childhood best friend, Taryn, who always has the best advice. Taryn and I share the lucky experience of having moms who gave us good advice as kids. I remember her mom giving me advice, too! We both still quote our mothers often. Taryn read the two questions above and had this to say:

    What Does Friendship Look Like?

    “Kids are learning constantly how to treat people and be a friend. You could argue by the success of this column that we are all still learning these lessons into adulthood. If I was in this situation as a parent, then I’d see it’s my job to teach my daughter what friendship looks like. I’d teach her to gravitate towards people who fill her up, but also to have compassion from afar. Clearly something is going on with the other girl. To me the most important message is for the daughter to not feel any pressure either way to stay friends because of the relationship between the mothers. If the other mom reaches out and asks about the shift in the friendship between the kids, then you can just say they weren’t getting along and when they are ready they will figure it out. A moment like this is an opportunity for us to teach that friendships can have shifts, but that burning a bridge doesn’t have to be the solution. In a month it may totally change. That’s how girls are.”

    Readers, I know you have opinions and we’d love to hear them. Please comment below!

    Thank you,

    Nina

    You can follow our friendship advice columnist Nina Badzin on her blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

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  • How To Make New Friends as An Adult: 13 Ways To Connect

    Here’s how to make new friends as an adult: get creative.

    how to make new friends

    There’s no denying that building new friendships is more difficult as we age. It was all so easy as a younger person. It was as if potential friends were everywhere. The dorm, your classes, your apartment building, parties.

    Then we grow up. Friends move away, or get married, or have kids, or are consumed with their jobs. Or all of the above. Suddenly you realize that you have far fewer friends than you ever have before, and you aren’t sure how to begin to make more.

    Friendship is harder when we get older for many reasons.

    First, in general, we have far less free time. We’re pulled in many directions: raising kids, doing our jobs, caring for aging parents, taking care of our homes.

    Our living arrangements are not as conducive to making new friends as an adult either; where we once lived in a dorm or an apartment, we now live in more isolated houses.

    We also (most of us anyway) have a greater understanding of our own weaknesses and flaws. We might be more wary of opening up all of our baggage and personality quirks to strangers than we were as kids.

    Most of all, however, what our friendships are missing is consistency. When we were younger, we often saw the same people, at nearly the same time, in the same places. We saw our roommate every day when we got home from school or work, or we went to class with the same people each week.

    But making friends as an adult is not impossible. When I asked my own Facebook community about how to make new friends as an adult and how they’d done it in the past, I got terrific answers.

    Try an activity that requires a consistent schedule.

    Friendship guru Shasta Nelson, author of the new book Frientimacy and the foreword author to our first book, wrote: “If we join something—like a church, a co-working space, a book club—where the regularity is already scheduled then we can show up and build familiarity before taking the friendship outside of that setting.”

    Take a class

    One activity that requires regular commitment is a class — an adult education class, a writing class, computer class, dancing, grad school. As an adult, I’ve made several close friends in classes that I’ve taken over the years.

    Be bold.

    One of my friends from high school said that she approached a woman at a kids’ birthday party and said, “I’m in the market for a best friend, since mine moved. What do you think?” As she has gotten older, my friend said, “I can’t afford to be coy anymore.”

    Travel.

    A friend of mine from graduate school met a couple on a cruise ship that he and his partner still connects with.

    Start a club.

    If you can’t find an activity that interests you, start your own club.

    One writing friend of mine said, “I started a cooking club with a bunch of people I barely knew (one from work, one from a kid’s sports team, one was our doula), and it worked really well. These families are probably our closest friends in this area.”

    Do community service.

    Another Facebook friend told me, “I organized cultural exchanges and made numerous international friends.”

    Exercise

    Several of my friends mentioned that they found friends by joining a gym or going to an exercise class. One friend mentioned See Mommy Run, a site that connects moms through walking and running groups.

    Even walking around your neighborhood (especially with your dog or baby!) can lead to friendships.

    One Facebook friend told me, “When my son was about 6 weeks old, I started walking with him in a carrier around the neighborhood. I kept seeing the same woman about the same time every day, walking with her son and dog. It wasn’t long before we started saying hi and finally, we stopped to talk and then exchange numbers. As it turned out, our sons were a week apart, we had both had c sections, and we were both in the middle of postpartum anxiety issues. She is now one of my best friends.”

    School Pick Up Lines

    Several friends mentioned school pick-ups as opportunities to make new friends. When I first started waiting in the pickup line for my son last year after his day of preschool, I was intimidated. Everyone seemed to know everyone else, except me! How did they all seem to know each other so well? Why were they excluding me? It took me a long time to realize that they had met and gotten to know each other exactly this way, by being friendly.

    Shopping

    More generally, waiting in any sort of line can have potential for meeting new people. Just yesterday a woman struck up a conversation with me waiting in line at Target. She saw that I was buying a bunch of puppy supplies and asked me if I had gotten a new puppy. Fifteen minutes later we were still talking about my Bernese puppy, her family’s pets, and her children’s fondness for dogs.

    One friend said she made a close friend when “Standing in an aisle at a Homegoods store once which led to exchanging email info and an active friendship. Now that I think about it, I bonded with a woman once in a communal dressing room as we began helping each other pick out what looked best. I moved away but we still exchange holiday cards!”

    Another friend wrote, “I moved to Florida, pregnant, knowing only my sister. So I stalked moms buying diapers and baby food at Target.”

    Take Advantage of “Coincidences”

    Like my Facebook friends, I’ve made friends with people whose paths seem to intersect with mine regularly. Recently I made a new friend in my neighborhood when I saw her at the playground, after having seen her at the local coffee shop, library, and another park.

    One friend told me, “I ran into this woman three different times in several different situations — I bought a breastfeeeding pillow from her off of Craig’s List, then saw her at a professional conference, then saw her at the gym a few months later — and got her number and became friends.”

    Political or Social Activism

    One way of meeting like-minded people is through joining local or national groups organized around advocating for specific causes. Whether you’re passionate about local politics, a certain political party, environmentalism, gun control, or a political candidate, this common interest can lead to deeper connections.

    Online: Social Media and Blogging

    Several friends mentioned relationships that started out online — through blogging, Facebook, or Twitter — and then transitioned into “real life” friendships. My co-editor Stephanie and I are examples: we met through a Facebook blogging group, then started emailing each other, and eventually created this site. Only later did we meet in person!

    Common Struggles

    Several of my friends mentioned that they had made new friends when they were going through difficult times of their lives. They joined therapy or support groups for coping with divorce, addiction, special needs parenting, infertility, or other issues, and made friendships with those who could relate to their challenges.

    Bottom Line

    None of these suggestions will work to build meaningful friendships unless you allow yourself to be vulnerable and make an effort. For the most part, making new friends as an adult requires you to be proactive, as well as reflective. You need to know yourself: what’s important to you, what you value in a friend, and what you can offer as a friend.

    What have I missed? What are your suggestions about how to make new friends as an adult?

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