As I have been writing this series on the challenges of growing children and the pressures of their “social life,” I have been focusing on things we can do as parents to help them build strong social skills and bolster them against some of the pain and drama. Regardless of how much of that we do, however, there is a very good chance that at least once in their growing up years, our children will suffer at the hands of bullies, mean social cliques, get ousted from a social group, or experience their own transformation and decide to choose different peers. What is our involvement as parents (if any) and what can we do to support and encourage them through those huge social transformations?
As you may well imagine, I have been through all of these experiences with my three children–from being ousted from a social group and feeling rejected, to dealing with bullies and rumor-spreading, to having two of my children go through a growing process on their own of changing their peer group and finding friends whose value systems were more suited to their own. It was never a breeze. All these transformations are accompanied by pain and sadness and feelings of being isolated or not fitting in. It can be really rough to watch one’s child go through such tough times.
I think that empathy, understanding and support are key. As the parent, we need to avoid overreacting, but still hopefully stay close enough to be of support. In instances of bullying or completely inappropriate behavior on the part of either other children or our own, we will need to get more involved. In many cases, it can just be a matter of sticking with our kid until he or she heals and regroups and starts to find new people to “hang out with.” Encouraging the child to try a new activity or do something different might help–he could take advantage of the transition to do something he or she has always wanted to do.
One of the things that I have learned is that our children are learning important personal and social skills even when everything falls apart. How many times in our lives do we have to rebuild our social circle, separate ourselves from the pack, heal from broken hearts and rejection, and discover new character traits and values in ourselves? For most of us, in the course of our lifetime, we start new jobs, move to a new neighborhood, start and end relationships, join a new church congregation, etc. and learning how to do this with care, grace and optimism is important.
Of course, we need to be watching out for signs of depression or other mental or physical health issues when our children go through these rough social patches. As parents we can stay nearby and still let our child get through the tough lesson on his or her own.