BFF - Best Friends Forever?

From a young age, girls start to develop friendships, and they become of increasing importance as they get older. As with family relationships, they are usually multi-layered and very complex, being heavily charged with powerful emotions.

Girls typically talk – and talk, and talk. They can end up talking about each other, and this can translate to “bitchiness”. This is all the more distressing when carried out by text or email, and your daughter needs to learn not to get involved in such things, and only talk about others if it is kind, true, and necessary (or at least two of these things).

In general, friendships are especially important in identity-development during adolescence, and group-loyalty can be extreme. Girls’ friendships can be lifelong, and can be closer than those of sisters, and they develop in large measure through communication, shared experience, and the development of loyalty.

Typically, there comes a stage in many girls’ lives when they have, or would like to have, a close best friend, to whom they appear completely joined, emotionally. Lovely though this can be, it can exclude the development of other friendships, leaving her exposed to immense emotional loss should the friendship founder, as it probably will at some point.

Loyalty to friends can be paramount, and when a friend is disloyal, it can be the sudden and immediate end of the relationship, with no second chance. This may seem extreme to us as parents; but the point works both ways, and the needs of a friend, may trump any need within a family, for fear of being seen as disloyal to a friend in apparent need.

You may become aware that your daughter is being harmed by a manipulative and emotionally needy friend, and it can take skilled conversations over a period of time to help your daughter retain the friendship at a less deep level. This will help her tell the friend that she still likes her and enjoys her company, but retains her own identity and self- authority so will not always do what her friend wants. This may strengthen the healthy side of the friendship, or cause the friendship to fade.

Top Tips:

• Get to know the families of your daughters close friends. If a school has receptions or parents’ meetings, it is worth seeking out the parents of your daughters’ friends; you will be glad of each others’ support with respect to behavioural guidelines as your daughters travel through adolescence together, but before that, play-dates, birthday parties and shared lifts are appreciated on both sides.
• If your daughter finds friend-making hard for any reason, tell her teacher, and ask for ideas as to what you can do, and the school can do, to help her in this. If it is not successful, you may find you have to arrange social gatherings with other families so at least your daughter knows other children or young people. Some girls do find friend-making hard, and may not achieve it easily until the sixth form, if that. For more on this read ‘My daughter doesn’t have a friend’ also in this section.
• Most parents encourage their daughter’s friends to visit. If taken on holiday, however, you may find a week can sometimes be as much as girls’ friendships can cope with.
• Encourage her to have several good friendships, even if there is one special friend.
• Enjoy her friendships – for many parents, one of the great unsung joys of parenthood is getting to know their daughter’s friends, right into adulthood.