Relationships form the foundation of our children’s happiness and wellbeing – not to mention our own. While family relationships matter, friends also have substantial impact on how happy we, and our children, are in life.


Friends make life fun. Friends provide learning and socialisation opportunities. Friends become a child’s trusted confidant. My pre-adolescent daughter recently told me about one of her best friends, Tayah, who is able to keep all 14 of her closest-held secrets that even mum and dad can’t know.

But what can we do, as parents, if we are concerned about our child’s lack of friends?
More is NOT necessarily better when it comes to friends. Like a broad but shallow pond is not good for swimming, having a large number of superficial friendships will not be beneficial to our children. To use an old cliché, in friendships our children need quality, not quantity.

As a brief aside, I believe that the social media/facebook boom has contributed to the ‘more is better’ myth. The average facebook user has around 120-130 friends, but the average child on facebook has up to 70% more than this general average… probably around 200 friends. Many teens have over 300-400 friends! Friendship numbers have been used as popularity contests. Yet a recent Nielsen poll found that over half the children in its sample did not personally know all of their facebook friends. In other words, children are accumulating friends online in much the same way that people of our generation used to accumulate stamps, stickers, or other collectibles.

My point here is that having lots of friends is not necessarily good for our children, whether online or not. What does matter is that children have real friendships. Having lots of good friends is great, so long as the friendships are deep. Having lots of friends becomes meaningless and may be problematic if there are no strong, positive relationships that exist among all of those 'friends'.

For real friendships to form – friendships that are deep and that offer genuine support to our children – the currency of the domain is attention; face-to-face time. Chatting on facebook or msn or texting one another will not develop real, authentic relationships.

Think about the people who are your best friends. Chances are that you have spent many years building and cultivating your relationships together. Many of your best friends may have been your friends since you were teens. And it is likely, if you are married, that your very best friend is the person that gets the bulk of your attention – your husband or wife.

For our children to develop similar strong friendships they need to carry out the same activities. There are no short-cuts to friendship.

As parents, if you are concerned about lack of friends (or quality friendships in your child’s life) encourage play dates after school. Have your child play with just one friend (two’s company, three’s a crowd). Don’t allow TV or screen time as it will distract from relationship building. Instead, encourage them to play, go to a park, draw, cook and create. Sharing time and activities will build friendships. Being consistent with one or two of your child’s friends will promote strong, deep friendships over time. It also gives you the opportunity to watch your child, socially, and provide guidance where needed.

Forming a relationship with the parents of your children’s friends can also be beneficial. Families can understand one another better, and may even end up spending time together. As trust is built between families, the children’s friendships become easier.

Using weekends and holidays for small parties can also be a great way to help a child develop friendships.

Friendships make a significant difference to a child’s wellbeing. For our children to have authentic friendships parents should discourage shallow online relationships and promote real, face-to-face friendships for the children.