Trust and respect are two vital ingredients in a friendship. Without them how can you have a true and fruitful friendship? I don’t think you can so parents need to teach this to their children. This will allow them to recognise their genuine friends as they grow and form friendships. Trust and respect need to be there at some point but then people change, things happen and it’s gone. Both parties need to be present in a friendship for it to really work, so what happens when the trust is gone? Can you still be friends? Can you get the trust back? Children need to know about regaining trust when trust goes in friendships.
Regaining Trust Is So Important
If your child has a friendship that’s lost trust but doesn’t want to lose the friendship (and the friend wants the same), they need to talk about getting it back. That will mean deciding on what needs to change?
- What caused the breakdown? Try to be objective and be honest about what’s happened.
- Does anyone’s behaviour need to change or to do things differently?
- Does there need to be any compromise? Once we have a better understanding of the situation, try to work together to improve things.
- Maybe there needs to be an apology to move forward.
If either child believes that the trust has gone forever then there’s no hope for it to be repaired. This may be for the best if they’ve been treated badly or found new friends better suited to them.
Your child needs to see that right now they cannot be friends. In the future who knows?
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