Key Takeaways
- Healthy friendships as teenagers can help them shape their identity, increase happiness and support lifelong wellbeing.
- Parents can support their teens in navigating current friendships and creating new ones, managing conflict, and learning social skills.
- If your teen is having trouble making or keeping friends, a therapist can help.
As a parent, you probably want your teen to feel happy, confident, and surrounded by good friends. But making and keeping friendships isn’t always easy for teens. Challenges like shyness, social anxiety, or experiences with bullying can make it difficult.
It’s important to talk to your teen about friendship because these relationships play a key role in their happiness and personal growth. These conversations can help your teen learn how to make friends, handle conflicts, and develop healthy, lasting connections. These conversations can also offer a safe space for your teen to share their feelings. Show empathy and support, and remind them that many people struggle with friendship. They’re not alone.
A trained therapist can also be a valuable resource. They can work with your teen to address underlying issues like anxiety or low self-esteem and provide strategies to help them build healthy friendships.
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10 ways parents can help teens foster friendships
Parents can support their teens in developing healthy friendships in a variety of ways — without overstepping. These might include:
- Model positive friendships. Part of teaching your teen to be a good friend is leading by example. You can show them that healthy relationships involve being kind, listening, setting healthy boundaries, and building trust over time.
- Encourage social activities. If your teen struggles to make new friends with shared interests, suggest hobbies and activities they enjoy. Options could include joining an art class, volunteering at an animal shelter, or attending a summer camp during break.
- Practice social skills. For teens who find socializing challenging, practice social skills together through role-playing and supportive feedback. Face-to-face interactions can feel overwhelming for teens accustomed to online communication, but, with practice, these conversations can come more naturally.
- Help them identify qualities of healthy friendships. Encourage your teen to seek friends who are kind, honest, and supportive. Help them understand that true friends will celebrate their uniqueness and appreciate who they are. Instead of focusing on fitting in with the popular crowd, guide them to prioritize shared values.
- Help them recognize traits of unhealthy friendships. Help your teen identify unhealthy friendships, which might include signs like jealousy, possessiveness, or pressure to engage in risky behaviors. Let them know it’s OK to distance themselves from an unsupportive or abusive friendship.
- Guide them through handling conflict. Misunderstandings, jealousy, and feeling left out can lead to friendship conflicts at any age. Reassure your teen that these challenges can be resolved with communication and compassion.
- Foster family connections. While your teen might struggle with friendships at school, maybe they have relatives, like a sibling or cousin, who they feel more comfortable with. These friendships can be deeply rewarding. You can strengthen your teen’s sense of belonging through meaningful family moments like shared meals, game nights, or weekend outings.
- Support safe online activity. Teen friendships have evolved, with many meeting new friends online through gaming and social media. Encourage open conversations about their online experiences to discuss important topics like privacy and safety. Research has linked social media to loneliness, so ensure your teen has plenty of opportunities for real-life connection, too.
- Set small goals. Reassure your teen that making friends doesn’t happen overnight. Acknowledge that every interaction won’t result in a friendship, but small steps, like eating lunch with someone new at school, can make a difference. Celebrate your teen’s efforts as they work to make new friends.
- Find professional support. If your teen is feeling depressed or anxious about their lack of friends, support is available. Start by reaching out to their pediatrician or school counselor for guidance. Working with a therapist — whether in one-on-one or group settings — can help them build confidence in expressing their thoughts and emotions.
In my practice, I encourage parents to get really comfortable talking openly with their kids about a wide range of topics — including safety concerns, setting boundaries, and friendships. Creating a safe space where you ask questions and your teen feels safe coming to you about anything is the biggest way a parent can support. Within this safe conversational space, parents can ask questions about the people their teen does and doesn’t like in their life, and what friendship means to them.
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It can be hard for parents to watch their teens struggle with making and keeping friends. You may want to help, but it’s not always clear what to do or how without crossing boundaries. As a parent, it’s important to strike a balance between guiding your teen and letting them navigate social situations on their own.
If you’re unsure how to help, a therapist can offer guidance to either you, your teen, or both on building social skills and navigating friendship challenges. At Rula, we believe everyone deserves affordable, effective mental healthcare. With a network of over 10,000 therapists, it’s easy to find a provider who accepts your insurance and can meet with you via live video session as soon as tomorrow.
About the author
Linda Childers
Linda is an award-winning medical writer with experience writing for major media outlets, health companies, hospitals, and both consumer and trade print and digital outlets.
Her articles have appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, WebMD, AARP, Brain+Life, HealthyWomen.org, The Rheumatologist, California Health Report, Everyday Health, HealthCentral, and many other media outlets.
While juggling the responsibilities of being part of the “sandwich generation” and caring for both her toddler son and terminally ill mother, a nurse friend encouraged her to seek therapy, which helped her to learn coping strategies and manage her depression. Linda hopes her work will help to destigmatize mental health conditions and encourage others to get the help they need.
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