Making Friends

I think every parent worries about what kinds of friends their children will have, at least to some extent. Will my child be outgoing and make lots of friends or will he be a little more reserved and have just a few, really close friends? What types of people will he find himself drawn to? What kind of influence will they have on him? At what point will he learn to really play well with others and be able to make those kinds of friendships?

I'm learning the answers to some of these questions sooner than I anticipated. At 4, I expect my son to know the basics of how to get along with other children, sharing, taking turns, being nice, etc. I cannot expect the same of my 2 year old. He's still learning to master the fine art of sharing and taking turns and forget being nice, he lives to torture his older brother. Until this summer, I've kept my children mostly to myself. We've been active with soccer and swim lessons and had play dates with my friends who have children their age, but I haven't really put them in a position where they could develop friendships on their own. That's all changed this summer. When the weather got nice I began to notice how Collin looked longingly at the kids playing outside and how he would walk right up to them and start talking or playing alongside them hoping to be included. And to my surprise, they seemed just as eager to include him, and more surprisingly, Nicholas as well. Until now, I've sort of held back because I wanted to know who they are playing with and I still feel the need to supervise my kids outside at all times. That is not going to change for a long while. My other concern is that almost all of Collin's friends are older than him by at least a year. His best friends are a set of twins that "live in our backyard", as he puts it, whose parents have become good friends of ours. They are the only parents we've really met and gotten to know. The other children are 6 and 7 year olds and seem to have free reign to run all over the neighborhood. I have very mixed feelings about this. They seem to be basically good kids and as long as I'm there to supervise I don't mind my kids playing with them but I worry about they example they are setting. I don't care what their friends do, my kids will not have the run of the neighborhood at 6 or 7 years old. But I'm constantly amazed at how well the kids all manage to get along. There are the usual squabbles of he hit me, or he wouldn't let me take a turn, blah, blah, blah. For the most part though the kids seem to work them out by themselves. Usually the older ones see one of the younger ones getting upset and finds a way to mollify them. They seem to look out for one another. If one gets hurt, another one is right there to help them back up or find an adult to get some help. Playing with all the neighborhood kids is also teaching the boys how to interact with others and about being tough and independent. There isn't anything the big boys do that Nick isn't willing to at least try, and he usually succeeds. He loves to push the big boys on his tricycle and try to climb trees. And though he's not very strong he sure tries hard to throw the football and the Frisbee. I think my favorite thing about this summer has been the sense of community that has developed. There are nights when there are at least 2 or 3 sets of parents out and as many as 15 kids of varying ages playing in the common area that we call our backyard. The adults just sit and chat while the kids play, stepping in only when truly needed. I'm not sure what will happen with the carefree days of summer give way to the fall school schedule and all their friends have homework to do in the afternoons and the days grow shorter but I hope that there will still be time for these friendships to continue to develop. It's been a very eye opening experience for me because I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined that the kids would have embraced Nick in the same way they've embraced Collin. I have to sometimes pull him back a little bit because he is so much younger than the rest of them, but I'm the only one who really seems to notice or care about that. In some ways, children really are so much more sophisticated than adults. All they see is another friend to play with. All I see is my babies morphing into little boys with fierce independent streaks and a strong desire to form bonds with people who are not me. I'm having to let go just a little bit, and like so many of the other times I've had to let go a little bit, I'm not quite ready. I'm not their best friend anymore, not even close, and it won't be long before it won't even be cool to have me around. The days are coming where Mom will be totally annoying and they'll wish I'd just leave them alone. I'm glad we're not there yet because something tells me we're going to get there sooner than I'd planned and I won't be ready for that step either.