Note to Readers: Teen years are stressful, with friendships ranking high on a teens lists of concerns. Stressful friendships are toxic to the entire family. One way to prevent your teenager from having negative, energy sucking, drama causing relationships, is to have an honest look at our own friendships. My formula for a stress free friendship is EEE. Equal Energy Exchange. When I read the following steps from Talking Teenage, I knew I had to share!
by Talking Teenage
Teens are hard-pressed to know when they should phase out a friendship. As parents, we must admit that we generally want our kids to phase out anyone who hurts their feelings even slightly. Well, we need to meet somewhere in the middle.
STEP#1- Good Friendships are characterized by:
- Reciprocity and mutuality.
- Support and understanding.
- Characterized mostly by fun and pleasure.
- A sense of INCLUSION-a good friend does not encourage you to give up your other friends and or family.
STEP#2 -Toxic Friendships are characterized by:
- A draining of energy. Beware of “energy vampires.”
- A lack of reciprocity. There is no sense of give and take.
- One person redirecting all conversations to and about themselves.
- They deflate you. They don’t share your joys and perhaps even enjoy your failures.
- They put you down.
- Possessiveness and jealousy.
- Competitive and dismissive behavior.
- They gossip about you.
- They encourage you to get involved in destructive activities.
So, parents, if you see these things happening within your teens’ friendships we do not recommend that you coerce your teens into ending the friendships. If they do, however, ask for your input we recommend that you calmly and non-judgmentally suggest that they consider phasing out rather than dramatically ending these relationships. Your teens need to preserve their reputations. Encourage them to behave in a gracious manner so that they are not seen as being mean. They should keep in mind that they may continue to travel in the same social circles. When phasing out friendships there should be no leaking of secrets and information that was learned during the friendship. You do not want your teens to give the impression that they can’t be trusted.
And by all means, teach and model gracious behavior in difficult situations. Reputations need to be well-protected!
Jennifer Powell-Lunder is a licensed clinical child psychologist specializing in work with children, adolescents, and their families. She is co-author of the book Teenage as a Second Language: A Parent’s Guide to Becoming Bilingual. She is the co-creator of www.Talking Teenage.com an informational website for the parents of teens.
Barbara Greenberg, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist whose work focuses almost exclusively on the treatment of adolescents and their families. She is co-author of the book Teenage as a Second Language: A Parent’s Guide to Becoming Bilingual and co-creator of www.Talking Teenage.com
Teens with high self-value increase their chances of having a healthy friendship. IndigoTeen Dreams CD introduces teens to the self-esteem building technique of positive statements.
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I would like someone to recommend some words of wisdom, or a good book for me to share with my 14 year old daughter,(I’ll call her Eve) who seems to be stuck with a friend who is “toxic”. My daughter does not want to completely end this friendship with “Kelly”, (they have been friends for years and Kelly has no other friends) but recently Kelly has what seems to me to be an unhealthy attachment to my daughter, who feels stuck with her in turn. Kelly will follow Eve everywhere and begs to come home with her every day. Since most of the other kids in Eve’s circle do not or cannot tolerate Kelly’s drama, my daughter is feeling isolated from all of her other friends who are avoiding Kelly. Eve is a soft-hearted girl, who worries about Kelly attempting suicide (which she has done once before and Eve was the person she called after she swallowed the pills). Just to be clear, Kelly’s home life is not the most stable of homes, and her parents do not seem able or willing to get Kelly the help I think she needs. When the suicide attempt happened and my daughter came to me in a panic, I did call the suicide hotline and had the sheriff’s deputy and an ambulance come to Kelly’s house and they did take her to the local hospital. I thought this would have been a good opportunity for Kelly to get some much, much needed mental health assistance , but it does not seemed to have happened. She was back at school with in 2 days and says her counselors told her she did not need therapy. It turns out that the bottle of Tylenol only had a couple of pills in it, so it was not a health issue after all. The school counselor knows my concerns, and works with Kelly regularly, but she has not made much progress with Kelly’s parents who seem oblivious. I would love some help in supporting Eve through this and helping her find a tolerable, nice way to deal with this situation. Also, the school they attend is very small, and avoidance is not possible. The girls are in a grade of 18 students. They have every class together, and always will have until high school graduation in 3 1/2 more years! If anyone has words of wisdom to share or can direct me to where I can find some help. I would very much appreciate it! I do not have much control over Kelly’s mental health, but I want to do all I can to preserve Eve’s sanity (and mine!!) Thanks in advance!