As our children grow up, their friends will be a huge part of their lives. We may adore some of the friends they choose while not being the biggest fan of others. The best thing we can do for our children is to help them understand how the people they surround themselves with will impact their lives long term. Edmund Lee said, “Surround yourself with the dreamers, the doers, the believers, and thinkers, but most of all, surround yourself with those who see the greatness within you, even when you don’t see it yourself.” We tend to fall into the same patterns as the people we are actively spending time with. If the people we spend our time with are positive, motivated and driven to accomplish their goals, then we will be as well. If the people we spend time with are unfocused, negative, and angry then we will likely fall into those patterns as well. It is important we help our children understand that who they are friends with will seriously impact their lives. We want to surround ourselves with people who will support our goals and push us to be the best versions of ourselves. Sometimes we call this our village or our team, so for the purpose of this blog post we’re going to look at the dynamics of what makes a great team, and what healthy friendships look like. I believe many of these qualities make our kiddos great friends and great leaders. That’s what we ultimately want, right? We want our kids to grow up to be good humans, good leaders, good friends and positive members of society.
The Importance of Team Spirit
A characteristic I want to instill in my son is taking his tasks seriously, but not taking himself too seriously. What do I mean by that? My kiddo plays hockey, and I feel like this is a fantastic example of what I’m trying to explain. He needs to take hockey seriously in order to grow and be successful. He needs to train both his physical fitness and the specific skills that will help him excel in his sport. However, he doesn’t need to go into every practice and game thinking it’s his show and everything is his responsibility. Very early into his hockey experience we told him to always play for the name on the front (the team) while being cognizant of the name on the back (respect himself and represent his family name well). Hockey is my go-to because it’s such a prevalent part of our lives, but this is true for every team dynamic ranging from sports to the debate team, to a group of firefighters or Soldiers. In any team dynamic, just like in any friends group, people need to care about both their personal growth and success as well as the growth of the people around them.
A great team starts with the locker room culture and the team dynamic. You can have a whole team of extremely talented superstars, but if they aren’t working together, respecting each other, and supporting each other they will never be successful. In order to be successful (and to enjoy what they are doing) a great team needs to build their friendship and trust. Successful teams train together, work out together, and laugh together. Teams are better off when they can laugh at situations and each other while still focusing on the mission they need to accomplish. A good group of friends is like this as well. They will have different backgrounds, different interests, and different dreams and goals, but they will spend time together, work together and support each other. They will be there for each other, they will celebrate each other’s victories, and they will be there for one another when one is struggling. If your kids have people in their group who are sabotaging the others, gossiping about each other, and laughing at each other in a cruel way, then everyone is miserable, and it really affects the group dynamic. On that note, sometimes our kids get stuck in this “well I’ve known them forever we have to stay friends” rut and that’s just not the case. We need to empower our kids to choose who is in their life, and we need to help them understand why it matters.
Building Trust In Friendships
One way to tell if our kids have a close-knit group of friends is if our kids know their friends’ families, and we might know them as well, along with them knowing us. As our kids get older and become more independent this can be more difficult. Maybe this looks like our kids knowing details about their friends’ family; where they live, how many members make up the family, and what is going on in their lives. There is a deeper level of connection when people start to share the details of their lives that they hold closer to themselves. We may not tell acquaintances anything personal about ourselves, but when we start to develop deeper friendships with people, we usually open up more. When our kids develop these closer friendships, they start to care about what is going on in their friends’ lives. Our kids and their friends will be more likely to know when one of their group is struggling and they will do what they can to help. They will have built up a higher level of trust which will allow them to feel safe opening up to each other. These connections become especially important as our kids’ become teenagers and begin to navigate all the challenges that come with this chapter of their lives. This higher level of trust will also allow our kids and their friends to deal with issues amongst themselves. Hopefully they will be able to talk through situations that arise, because let’s be real, hormones, high school stress, and unexpected situations can lead to hurt feelings and unnecessary drama. This doesn’t have to be friendship ending if we can help our kids learn how to communicate and work through their problems. Additionally, when we genuinely care about the people in our lives, we want to work through our problems rather than just walking away and throwing away years of friendship.
There are a lot of benefits to our kids having healthy friendships. These friendships can help them feel connected with people who share their interests and values. This will help them to not feel lonely or isolated, which is critical for supporting their mental and emotional health. Great friendships can and should help encourage our kids to pursue their dreams and accomplish their goals. Being around focused and driven people helps us to be focused and driven. Friends also support us through our struggles. At the end of the day, we just want our kids to be happy, healthy, and surrounded by good people who love them and help them be the best version of themselves.
One of my favorite books about human connection and why our village is so important is called “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging” By Sebastian Junger. I highly recommend you grab yourself a copy here: https://amzn.to/3uHcXqY and let me know what you think!! (as an Amazon associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases). This book is more of a recommendation for parents and older teenagers rather than younger kids. The excerpt in the front of the book states, “We have a strong instinct to belong to small groups defined by clear purpose and understanding– “Tribes”. This tribal connection has been largely lost in modern society but regaining it may be the key to our psychological survival.” He discusses Soldiers, and the closeness they feel in training and in combat, and how disconnected they can feel when they come home and do not have this close tribe of people supporting them. While there is a lot of reference to the military, I believe understanding these concepts can also be useful in our civilian lives. We have become so disconnected by modern technology. Many people struggle to interact face to face, preferring to communicate through screens instead. Understanding the inherent need for actual connection can help us foster this within our families and friend groups. This connection will help bolster feelings of security, trust and confidence in our children.
As parents, it is important that we help our kids understand how to be a good friend, (how to be a good teammate as well). We need to be there for our kids when they are having friendship struggles, but it’s important that we take a supportive role without being judgmental or harsh. We should encourage our kids to be supportive of their friends, to be their cheerleaders and to be happy for them when good things happen for their friends. We need to support our kiddos when they are trying to support their friends if something bad happens. The last thing we need to do (and Heaven knows this is something I still struggle with every day) is to listen to our kids more than we talk at them. We think we have a lot of answers because we already went through this chapter of our lives. It’s easy to want to just give them the answers to the test, and sometimes we can, but more often than not we have to just be quiet and be there for them as they learn the lessons. What do you think?! What struggles have you seen with your teens and their friendships or teams? What do you find helps in these situations? I’d love to hear your feedback!