Parents,
For this month’s toolbox resource, we wanted to provide you with some practical things you can do as a parent to help equip your kids to learn how to build, develop, and discern healthy friendships; the kind of friendships that will lead them closer to Christ instead of pulling them away. So try to incorporate some (or all) of these things into your life and family rhythm as you lean into this crucial part of their development.
- Model having healthy friendships in your own life.
- Look for opportunities to talk about how having healthy friendships has impacted your life. Also, be bold enough to also talk about when unhealthy friendships brought you down or steered you away from who God called you to be.
- Talk about Proverbs 13:20 and help your kids to internalize this verse and understand its importance.
- Pray for your kids to be discerning when it comes to their friendships. Pray for God to bring them healthy, encouraging, and God-honoring friends.
- Make sure your child clearly understands your family’s boundaries and expectations when it comes to friendships. Kids need to know what activities and behaviors are on the yes and no lists so that they can better navigate play dates or other times with their friends.
- Organize opportunities for your kids to build healthy friendships through play dates and family outings. Put in the work to get to know the parents of your child’s friends, as these people will also have a voice of influence in your child’s life.
- Make church a priority so your kids can find friends who share their same faith, morals, and values.
- Talk with your kids about what it means to be a good friend and how being a good friend attracts good friends. Be sure to praise your child when you see them displaying these qualities of a good friend to their siblings and peers.
- Teach your kids to encourage, serve, and forgive others, which are parts of being a good friend.
- Find some parents who have kids in a developmental stage or two ahead of you and ask them how they navigated helping their kids at different stages with their friendships.
HERE’S A PREVIEW OF THE RESOURCE:
