One of the worst parts of launching your kid into the big bad world (aka school) is the inevitable politics of the playground. Navigating friendships can be complicated business for everyone, let alone pre-schoolers. And as a parent, watching your kid get left out or caught up in unnecessary drama is agony.
But here’s the good news—you can help. There are emotional skills that underpin a child’s ability to make and maintain meaningful friendships that parents and carers can help them develop. Through strengthening a child’s emotional intelligence, they’ll have the tools to handle the highs, the lows, and the inevitable “You’re not invited to my birthday party” sagas with grace. They’ll build stronger connections, speak up for themselves, and, crucially, recover faster when things go sideways (which they will).
Basically, give them the emotional toolkit now, and you might just save yourself a few years of playground diplomacy.
Here are 4 practical strategies to arm your kid with the skills to develop lasting friendships
1. The First Fifteen
The first 15 seconds are the hardest in a new interaction. When en route to the park, swimming lesson, or anywhere there may be potential new friends, ask your child,: “what can you do when you meet a new person?”
Talk about how it’s friendly to smile, say hello, discuss some questions they might ask. If they are feeling confident you could even set your child a challenge to say hello to one new person that day. Maybe they don’t say hello in return? That’s ok too. Not every interaction we have will lead to a connection.
2. Have a ‘yes’ day!
Does your child struggle to speak their mind or assert themselves in social situations? Confidence isn’t something we’re just born with—it’s built. And, let’s be honest, marching up to a new pal on the playground or standing their ground in a row over whose turn it is on the slide takes guts.
Try this at home: Create opportunities for your child to take the lead: like letting them plan a family day out. This offers them a chance to make decisions, give reasons for their choices and helps your kid realise that their ideas matter. Encourage the family to get behind their plans and after a smashing day out they’ll have proof that they are more capable than they might have thought.
Next stop: sticking up for themselves when little Jack tries to nick their snack.
3. Build their emotional vocabulary (and emotional intelligence)
One of our most sought after learning worlds, My Emotions With Leo, does this by first teaching your child about emotions: to name them, describe how they feel in our bodies, how to recognise them when they arise and strategies they can use to process that feeling.
Children who are in tune with their emotions have a way better shot at finding true friends. Learning about feelings will help them start to get other people. Put simply, helping kids handle their own emotions means they’ll be better able to handle others’, which sets them up for stronger, more lasting friendships.
Through storytelling, challenge-based games and fun, creative activities, Leo’s colourful learning world on our educational app has been proven to enhance children’s confidence, ability to manage their emotions and forge lasting friendships. Many parents note a visible difference in their child in as little as 2 weeks.
4. The art of the play-date
Create opportunities for quality time with friends. Research on the formation of new friends shows that it takes between 40 - 60 hours for a relationship to go from acquaintance to casual friend; and almost 200 hours to make a best friend.
The more time they have to hang out and strengthen their connections with their friends the better. Playdates, football club, drama class, trips to the park, all help to provide opportunities for your child to spend quality time building friendships.
Brigid is a primary school teacher with over a decade of experience teaching in state and independent schools in the UK and Middle East, with specialism in Early Years Education and working with neurodiverse children.
