Handling Friendship Problems at Primary School

By: The DIG for Kids
Time to read: 3 min.

Affiliate Disclaimer

As an affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases including Amazon. We get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

When our children start school they are still very young and very used to having plenty of attention from their parents and possibly their siblings too.

It is also possible that you have been taking them to toddler, pre school, nursery and other groups to help them socialise.

Table of Contents

A New Experience and New Friends

Primary schools all offer new children the chance to come and look round and spend some time at their new school before they start, as a way of helping them to acclimatise to their new experience.

Early Friendships

It is possible that your child will have made some friends at pre school and therefore will be lucky enough to ‘go up’ to big school with some familiar faces.

However, if this is not the case then they may feel a little nervous about all these new children that they are spending several hours a day with!

Pushy Parents!

It is really important not to push your child into making friends with other children.

Many children are naturally gregarious and sociable, and are blessed with enough confidence to help them during those early days at their new school.

However, others may feel lonely and shy and struggle to bond with any of their peers.

Playtime

Whilst encouraging your child to include themselves in play and things like after school groups is a positive move,

it is not wise to pressure your child into making friends with other children as they will naturally find their own way.

Friendship Groups

Even when your child has established a friendship or friendship group, there will be the inevitable spats between children-both at school and after school and this is just part of growing up and part of school life.

Disputes and Arguments

It is very easy and totally understandable for parents to want to get involved in disputes and arguments between their children and their friends, but it rarely helps if a parent wades in with a heavy handed approach to the situation.

Most conflicts can be resolved with a reasoned discussion, and conflict handling and resolution are important life skills for a child to develop.

Protecting Your Child

In the case of extreme friendship issues such as emotional or physical bullying then different approaches have to be employed. I

n these cases it is always best to talk to the school first-particularly if the problem is happening during school time.

Again, it is the natural response of any parent to want to protect their child from such a situation, and this is exactly what you should do-but in a controlled and carefully thought out manner.

Important life skills

It is easy to get extremely upset about your child’s friendship problems, and we all want our children to be happy and safe-especially when they are away from us and at school.

However, throughout their school life whether they are in year one or year six, your child will always encounter problems and difficulties with their friends and it is good for them to learn about how to cope with these situations as they arise.

Although it is important to support them, you must also let them try and find their own way.

By teaching them to be able to talk to their friends and understand why people can get upset, you will be equipping your child to be able to cope with conflict and understand why sometimes our friends behave out of character and the ways in which they can overcome these moments in their lives.