Isn't middle school kind of characterized by
by grnd (2019-11-06 14:42:51)
Edited on 2019-11-06 14:44:29

In reply to: Any advice on steering a child (G11) away from a friend?  posted by shawno3


"attention-seeking, self-centered, impolite behaviors"? I would wager these influences are going to show up outside of this particular friend. I wouldn't try to insulate your child from these things, but rather instill in her the ability to deal with them or discard them.

The problem may take care of itself. The friends my G20 had in middle school changed throughout middle school and didn't continue into high school. So this may not be the problem you necessarily think it is.

Finally, whenever we saw one of our kid's friends making a poor decision, we would talk about it with our kids. We have never forbidden our kids to spend time with some other kid, and have been fortunate that our kids were able to recognized trouble when they saw it and they on their own sort of shut down friend relationships. I suspect a part of why they were able to do that is the relationship that they had to us and our ability to sort of talk through all kinds of things. We also just may have gotten lucky.

All of which is to say, talk to your kid about it. I would be reticent to just prohibit her from spending time with this other kid. The other thing you can do is try to set up times where she can reinforce her relationship with her best friend (going to dinner, etc.)

Good luck.