How to help your child make friends and handle friendship issues at school

Why friends are important for your school-age child

Your child’s world gets bigger when they start school. Relationships with other people – like the children in your child’s class at school – become more important.

Friendships are good for your school-age child’s self-esteem. When your child has close friends, your child feels like they belong. Friends care about your child, and this helps your child feel good about themselves.

Friendships also help kids develop important life skills like getting along with other people and resolving conflicts and problems. Kids with these skills are less likely to have social and emotional difficulties later in life.

Your child will enjoy playing with their friends, but they still need a strong and positive relationship with you. Family relationships give your child a stable, safe base through the ups and downs of making and losing friends. In fact, the care and love you give your child at home helps your child manage other relationships.

How to help your child make friends at school

It’s important to let your child try to make friends on their own and at their own pace. But you can create an environment at home that helps your child feel confident to socialise with classmates and make friends.

Here are ideas:

Be excited and enthusiastic about new friends. This sends your child the positive message that this experience will be exciting and that they’ll cope and have fun.
Show interest by stopping to listen when your child wants to talk about their classmates and new friends. This lets your child know that they can talk to you if they have any concerns about their friendships.
Play games and do activities at home that give your child the chance to practise friendship skills. For example, board games help your child practise taking turns.
Read books about making friends. You could try Old friends, new friends by Andrew Daddo and Jonathan Bentley, The five rules of friendship by Jess Sanders and César Barceló, or Making friends: a book about first friendships by Amanda McCardie and Colleen Larmour.

In the early years, friendships often start when classmates play together. Your child might play with a lot of children, they might have 1-2 playmates, or they might prefer their own company. If your child seems happy with their social life, you might not need to worry about trying to find friends for them.

How to help your child make friends through playdates

Playdates outside school can be a great way for your child to make new friends and strengthen existing friendships.

You can help your child arrange playdates by asking them whether there’s anyone they’d like to invite to your home. You could encourage your child to invite their friend, and you can talk to the friend’s parents at school drop-offs or pick-ups or other school activities.

Here are tips to help playdates at your home go smoothly.

Before the playdate

Help your child to put away any precious belongings that they might not want to share or that might get damaged. This can prevent upsets.
Plan activities. It could be craft, cubbyhouses, ball games and so on. You might not need to use these activities, but it’s good to have them ready in case you sense the children getting restless.
Talk with your child about whether it’s OK to use digital technology during the playdate. If you need to, agree on rules about when and how it can be used.

During the playdate

Invite the friend’s parent to stay. Some parents feel more comfortable if they can stay for a little while and get to know you.
Start with a snack or drink. This can help kids feel comfortable with each other.
Talk with the children about what areas of the house or garden they can use. This can help to prevent tension about what they’re allowed to do in your home.
Be available if the children need help, but give your child and their friend time and space to learn how to get along with each other.
If your child finds playdates tricky, try keeping them fairly short – for example, 1-2 hours.

If your child wants to have a playdate but isn’t sure who to invite, you could watch who they play with before or after school. Or you could ask the teacher who your child plays and gets along well with.

School friendship issues

Early school friendship issues include being left out, having a fight with a friend, or finding it hard to make friends.

Occasionally, these issues might involve behaviour. For example, your child and their friends might be doing things that are unsafe.

Sometimes your child might tell you about these issues, or you might see the signs. For example, your child doesn’t seem happy about going to school, isn’t eating lunch, or seems to be socially anxious.

How to talk about friendship issues with your child

Talking with your child about friendship issues gives you a chance to hear more about what’s going on. Talking can also help your child understand and manage their feelings about issues and work out how to handle them.

Here are tips for talking:

Ask your child about what happened and how they felt. For example, ‘How did you feel when Ali wouldn’t let you play?’
Encourage your child to talk by telling them about a friendship issue you had as a child or by reading a story about friendship issues.
If the issue involves a safety concern, encourage your child to make their own decisions, rather than just following friends. For example, ‘Is it a good idea to jump from the top of the slide? You might get hurt’.
If your child isn’t ready to talk, let them know they can always come to you.
Listen or give your child a hug. Sometimes this can be enough.

If you feel like there’s something your child isn’t telling you, you could ask the teacher whether they’ve noticed anything different in class or in the playground.

What to do if your child has no friends or other friendship issues

Most children find it hard to make friends sometimes. And most children will come home at some stage and say, ‘No-one likes me’ or ‘I don’t have any friends’.

Here are things to try:

Encourage your child to introduce themselves when they meet new children – ‘Hello, I’m Kaia. What’s your name?’
Suggest your child starts a game and asks classmates to play it with them. Some kids find it helps to take a ball or game to share.
Use role-play to help your child practise friendship skills, like joining in with a game or taking turns to choose what game is played at recess.
Make use of the school buddy system, if there is one. Your child could ask their buddy for help with finding friends or joining in.
Work on your child’s self-esteem and confidence to join in with play at school. One way to do this is by focusing on your child’s strengths and praising their efforts.
Look for extracurricular activities that give your child opportunities to meet kids with similar interests. There are many things your child could try – sports, dance, art classes, Scouts and so on.
Depending on your child’s age and interests, let your child try a virtual playdate. For example, they could play an age-appropriate video game online with a friend. Digital technology can support socialising for some children.

If these ideas don’t seem to be helping, make an appointment to talk with your child’s teacher. The teacher can let you know what’s going on and whether your child might need extra help with friendship skills. The teacher can also suggest ways to help your child feel included.

Having friends who don’t go to the same school – for example, children from extracurricular activities, neighbours or family friends – can boost your child’s confidence, especially if they’re having friendship issues at school.

Friends for children with additional needs

If your child has additional needs, your child might need extra help with friendships.

You could try making friends with other parents and getting together after school at a playground. It can help to give the other parents and children ideas about including your child. For example, ‘Bill loves watching people play soccer. He can throw the ball in and be the scorer’.

You can get more ideas from our articles on play and friends for children with disability, friends for autistic children, and friends for children with ADHD.