Reg Hamlett is a guest contributor to Playground Dad. He lives in Chicago, IL with his 2 sons.
As I watch my children seek, build and sometimes lose friendships, I am often holding my breath. It’s hard, really hard, to meet good friends. We’ve moved several times over the last five years, and each move brought with it a unique set of adventures and challenges. Not to mention the natural friendship changes that happen as kids get older and mature at different speeds. Who and what’s cool in the first grade will change in both significant and subtle ways by freshman year. The biggest challenge has consistently revolved around leaving old friends behind and making new friends. Whether it is the new kid in school blues or the play-date shuffle, its just not easy. With each move and transition, I find myself coming back to the words my mother shared with me when I was younger: “If you can ask someone 10 questions about them, without them asking a single question about you, they are not your friend.” I have been in several situations over the years where that didn’t hold true, but they are the exceptions. This rule has served me very well in assessing people likely to become close to me. To me, the core of her message was about the value of being a good listener. Because finding and keeping good friends, while influenced by many factors, comes down to how well we listen to each other.
There are few things more important to me than my children finding their voices. I want them to be completely comfortable expressing themselves and have the self-confidence necessary to achieve their dreams. Apparently, every parent has the same objective. Because I’ve heard the empowered “voices” of many different children as my children explore the world. There is the “it’s all about me and you can be my friend if you recognize” kid, there is the “I want what you have but don’t touch my toys” kid and then there is my favorite, the “my parents told me I have to be a leader and manners aren’t really important, so deal with it if you want to be my friend” kid. On top of that, there are the voices of the parents. Parental voices may not seem that important on a child’s quest for friendship, but have you ever been stuck on a play-date or at a birthday party of a child with crazy parents? Not a fun afternoon.
I can’t, and really don’t want to, pick my children’s friends for them. While I might be in control of the schedule and the keys now, the reality is their instincts will need to become their best guide through the maze of relationships. I do want them to become skilled at the art of expressing themselves while sincerely engaging in what others think and say. In part, I want them to have a critical eye and to be able to call foul when they hear something that doesn’t make sense. More importantly, I want them to recognize that the best learning takes place in the exchange of ideas. The world they live in moves so incredibly fast and the diversity of people and ideas they engage with is so incredibly rich that, if all they can hear is their own voice, they will be left behind.
The challenge, for me, is figuring out how and where to help. Most days, I feel like an old school dad. Manners matter. When a child comes over to my house or calls my home, it tells me everything I want to know about their home training. How do they start the conversation? Do they make eye contact? Who are there parents and where do they live? All simple questions that were a given when I grew up. Often, I am pleasantly surprised by the social skills of the kids I meet, and I am really impressed. Other days, I wish I could just say, “that kid is crazy, stay away from him.” However, my oldest tells me that I have a no-nonsense reputation with his friends and that not all of them can handle me. That isn’t always a good thing, but the alternative is to have him out and about with kids I don’t know in situations I can’t see. So I try to keep it light but I can definitely live with being the no-nonsense dad.
Ultimately, though, I know this isn’t about my friendships. It’s about my children’s ability to navigate the world on their own terms. So I just try to listen to their voices and hope that the world is listening as well.
