You’re pregnant! And so is your BFF! Instantly, you dream about play dates, outings around town, even vacations that your growing families can share.
And for a few years, that just might happen. But one day, the kids get that independence thing going, and little Johnny or Susie announce they just don’t like little Hannah or Joshua. What do you do?
“You socialize as couples and stop socializing as families,” says Owings Mills mom Debbie Lurie, who says her three kids started choosing their own friends at around age five or seven. “There’s nothing worse than when your kids don’t get along. It makes it way too stressful for everybody involved,” Lurie observes.
Clinical Social Worker Lisa Schkloven, who has a private practice in Pikesville, says we simply can’t assume our kids will love our friend’s kids. “One of the dilemmas is the fantasy. ‘I grew up with this girl. We’ve been friends forever. Of course our kids will love each other,’” Schkloven notes.
Former Reisterstown resident and pediatrician Ari Brown, author of “Baby 411” and “Toddler 411,” remembers going to the Mommy and Me classes at the JCC. The kids were all so young, she recalls, that it was really more about the moms making friends than the kids. “Who cares if the kids like each other — the moms wanted to get together and play,” observes Brown, now of Austin, Texas, in an e-mail. She believes that there is nothing wrong with parents or preschool directors choosing a child’s playmates — that is, until the kids are old enough to pick their own friends. At that point, parents have to listen to their kids. “If the kids just can’t get along… the parent has to separate their needs from their child’s needs,” says Schkloven.
It’s not exactly clear why some parents have a hard time accepting that their kid does not want to be friends with their friend’s kid. “I don’t know if they’re worried about how they will look to their friends” or “if they’re concerned about what it says about them as a person,” muses licensed clinical psychologist Jason Greenberg of New York. He says, in any event, the kids should be taught to treat the other kids and the parents politely.
Reisterstown mom Laurie Isaacson has seen her kids grow apart from a friend’s kids. “They were together when they were babies because of us,” she says. “We’ve stayed together, but they went to different schools, and then they just haven’t been friends,” she says.
As kids grow older, it’s normal for them to gravitate toward certain kids and not others. “If two school-age children are simply out of sync (because they have different interests or personality styles, or different peer groups) and simply don’t get along with one another, moms shouldn’t force them on one another so the adults can socialize,” writes NYU School of Medicine psychiatry professor Irene Levine, in an e-mail to iNSIDER. Dr. Levine blogs about friendship at fracturedfriendships.com .
Isaacson, who has three little girls, says she and a friend kept inviting each others’ kids to birthday parties, which, she says, didn’t make sense because the girls weren’t friends. In the long run, Isaacson notes, a little honesty goes a long way.
“I have one friend and we’re honest with each other, and we’ve admitted to each other our kids just aren’t friends and it’s OK. But we’re still just friends. I like that route better, because I don’t like pretending.”
“Get together for lunch or go out on a Saturday night. Don’t put kids in an uncomfortable situation,” adds Schkloven.
Sometimes, however, the story doesn’t have a happy ending. Consider this cautionary tale from Susan, who asked iNSIDER not to use her full name. Susan says she and her friend have known each other forever, and had kids at the same time. Things were fine when the kids were toddlers.
Fast forward to high school and Susan’s kids informed her that although the adults are friends, the kids “are not… and they are miserable during these evenings.”
Then one evening, as the adults were socializing, there came a blood-curdling scream. Susan’s daughter had been hit in the eye. No one confessed, and the girl ended up with a blood clot in the back of her eyeball.
Her daughter recovered, but Susan says the couple never called to see if she was OK. Today, the couples only see each other every couple of years, and never with the kids.
What about the flip side of the situation: your child is best friends with another child, and you just can’t stand the mom or dad? Schkloven says that’s the time to hold your tongue and be a role model.
“Parents need to role model for their kids at that point how to behave and interact respectfully, so they can facilitate a friendship for their children. They try not to talk about the parents in front of the kids,”
“We don’t like everyone we work with or who goes to our synagogue, but everyone is due the courtesy of common respect,” she says. “It’s an opportunity to show your child ‘I may not like so-and-so, but I’m going to respect so-and-so.’”