How to Help Your Kids Navigate Friendships

We want to protect our kids, but we also want them to learn how to navigate finding and making friends. In this article, we’ll focus on what to do when your kids have friendship troubles in two areas—when we think a friend isn’t a good influence and when a friendship falls apart.

Sometimes our kids encounter other children who don’t have the same values or upbringing. This can expose our kids to foul language, books, music, and movies we might not have wanted them to experience. Sometimes, a child who was a good friend in elementary school can become a not-as-great influence in middle or high school.

Here are three ways to handle a child whose friends might not be the best in our book.

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