Change In Friendship Groups

Our children should be prepared for change in their friendship groups as they return to school after lockdown. Friendships may take a while to return to ‘normal’ and relationships may have changed during the course of lockdown. Some children will have had a bad experience of lockdown and may not have been reaching out to their friends. This could have been interpreted as them not being interested in being friends anymore or just not bothering to put the effort in. Other children may have been brilliant at reaching out to friends and going the extra mile. So their friendships have remained strong. Some children may have been shielding and not been able to see their friends and others will have been ignoring the rules and seeing many friends in a group. Some of the friendship groups may have changed because the like-minded children have gravitated towards each other and become better friends. Or maybe new friendships have been formed that you child isn’t part of.

Talking About Friendship Groups

If our children’s friendships have been challenged and they no longer want to be as close to old friends – that’s okay. They can still have them in their life, only the relationship may shift and change so they’re not as close. Talk to your child about this as it’s a normal part of life. Friendships can change over time.

Talk to your children about who they are interacting with now and who they think will continue to be friends with. Are they enjoying new friendships?

How do they feel about the children who haven’t been great communicators the past few months? Are they good enough friends to sustain? That might depend on the reason they’ve been quiet and the friendship can resume as we start going back to normality.

All children need to be open-minded to how their friendship groups are going to go. As with all relationships, there will be changes. Some of those friendship changes will be positive and some will be negative. Help prepare children for this as they return to school

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