Ask her to try both these strategies, as well as encouraging her to develop new interests, perhaps ones that her friend doesn’t have, so that she can meet a whole new set of potential friends. If she is still feeling isolated, try contacting her form teacher to ascertain whether she appears to be isolated at school. If so, her school should be able to suggest further strategies for you both. Nobody would claim that the teenage years are easy; good friendships can really help.
My daughter’s best friend is too clingy
Q: My 10-year-old daughter has had a best friend for over a year now. However, she is starting to find her a bit clingy. She still likes her but she wants to spread her wings a bit and is not sure how to do this without upsetting her. Any advice?
A: The intensity of ‘best friendships’ can be a double-edged sword — a source of tremendous happiness, but also the cause of real anxiety when things cool off a bit, or the two friends mature at different rates, and therefore begin to want different things. Quite understandably, your daughter wants to be really kind in separating a bit, and it would certainly be kinder if the impetus for this separation isn’t seen as coming from her. You can do a lot to help mastermind this, and she will bene t from your help. Start looking at times when they meet outside school and think about cutting these down. There may be all sorts of reasons that you can find to need your daughter at home more, or out with you more often. If your daughter is able to say to her friend, for example, that she is sorry she can’t see her after school on Thursdays now because you want her to do some-thing else, then you will start to break the dependence. Talk to your daughter’s school as well, as they will be able, unobtrusively, to engineer things so that your daughter and her friend are not always together, and are put in different groups and perhaps do different activities, so that they spend more and more time with others. Together, these strategies, with everyone working diplomatically in the background, will ease their separation and yet should mean that they can remain really good friends — the ideal outcome.
Why does my daughter sabotage her friendships?
Q: Since my daughter was a little girl (she is an only child), she has been in constant ghts with her friends. As a result, she is now 15 and has no friends. Her pattern is to make a friend and after a few months there are always comments such as ‘My friend is not very nice’ or ‘She did this or that.’ An argument then occurs, and after she leaves this friend, or they leave her, my daughter goes on to another friend and so on. I have talked to her on many occasions about this. We have moved countries often, but I have always tried to make her feel secure. Is it because she feels insecure that she sabotages her friendships?
A: One of the hardest things about friendships is learning that other people rarely do exactly what we want them to do. When we were little, our world revolved around us, and we played with toys that stayed where we put them and acted as we wanted them to act. Real-life friends are much more interesting, but also very much more their own people. Until we realise that our friends are not just toys, or extensions of ourselves, and until we accept that there must be lots of tolerance and negotiation in any friendship, then we never really make lasting friendships. It sounds very much as though your daughter is still caught in a more immature approach to friendship — not because she feels insecure, but because she just hasn’t yet learnt the value of not being able to control other people, but just accepting them for who they are. She may be a perfectionist — not at all uncommon! — and she would bene t from realising that imperfection is sometimes much better than perfection, certainly when it comes to relationships with other human beings. It is worth you speaking to her in these terms, showing her that you understand, and if you have any ‘wise mentors’ around to whom you think she might listen (e.g. your friends, aunts, her teachers and tutors and other parents — possibly even a counsellor), then talk to them and see if they can help you to reinforce these messages. You all want her to be happy, and friendships most de nitely will be a part of this happiness, when she learns to ‘live and let live’.
Friendships with boys
Q: My daughter is moving to an all-girls’ school in September, but I am worried about how she will retain her friendships with boys or create new ones as she gets older. She doesn’t have a brother and I don’t want her to become awkward around boys as she hits adolescence. Any ideas?
A: On a practical level, both you as a parent and your daughter’s school can, and should, create opportunities for natural friendships to occur. If your daughter’s school has a ‘friendly brother school’, then these opportunities are part of the natural pattern of a school: music, drama, Combined Cadet Force, careers events, etc. all provide the natural openings for friendships to develop.
At home, you can also help by ensuring that activities are not just girl-friendly — for example, badminton or tennis clubs, drama groups and orchestras — and holidays could involve activities with others: adventure holidays, skiing, camping, etc.
If we teach our girls to be con dent and self-assured, they should be able to create and maintain healthy relationships with anyone they come into contact with later in life. Of girls who attended all-girls’ schools or mixed schools, with and without brothers, it is their inherent character that dictates how they will handle relationships — all we can do is give them the experiences that will teach them how to develop.
Sexual relationships
Your daughter will face unprecedented pressures as she enters her teenage years – to conform and to compete – and the advice you give her and the example you set her will be crucial. Raising girls in today’s world can seem a daunting prospect. Unsuitable role models, media obsessed with sex and size . . . no wonder your daughter feels under pressure. While every parent would like to shelter their daughter from too much knowledge and experience too soon, it is just not possible to protect her forever. You will want your daughter to make informed decisions and to take care of herself. Although sex is an emotive, sensitive and potentially embarrassing subject it is important that your daughter can turn to you for information and advice.
Sex education by the wised-up parent
When Wet Wet Wet sang ‘Love Is All Around’, they probably meant not love but sex. Yes, it’s everywhere – TV, films, magazines, adverts, music, newspapers, novels, the internet – there’s hardly any escaping it, and most of it is aimed at the teenage market.
Sex is so flaunted, it can’t be a surprise to anyone that many bright youngsters are keen to try it out as quickly as is reasonably possible. When Mae West said of men, ‘I feel like a million, but one at a time’, she was regarded as very ‘outré’. In the 21st century, there’s no need to snigger at the double entendre. It’s all out there, from the casual acceptance of frequent one-night stands in Friends, to the full frontal nudity of Sex and the City (actually rated 15, but the film treat of choice for many 12 to 14 year olds’ birthday parties on its release).
A striking feature of even the most intelligent teenagers is their inability to foresee consequences. So what can the concerned parent do to help them handle the immense pressure to want too much too young? It’s not easy, without nagging or sounding like the harbinger of doom, but that old chestnut of ‘keeping the lines of communication open’ really is the answer:
• Watch their soaps with them and give your opinion, then listen honestly to theirs.
• Check that they really do have proper information – what did the school nurse say about contraception in Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE)?
• What can your daughter tell you about sexually transmitted infections? (There are lots of new ones since most parents were young. Let your daughter be the expert in giving you that information.)
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