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Helping Your Toddler Make Friends

How to teach your toddler to forge healthy first friendships

by: Sydney Loney

tudies show that children with friends have a greater sense of well-being, higher self-esteem and fewer social problems than children without friends. Here’s how to help your child find healthy, fulfilling friendships.

The importance of play dates

“Children learn a lot just from watching, so it’s important to start exposing them to other children right from the get go,” says Alyson Schafer, a psychotherapist and author of Breaking the Good Mom Myth. “If your child doesn’t have siblings, make a point of getting out into groups with other moms and babies, which is also good for your own mental health.” Even infants interact, Schafer says, so getting together with other new moms early on can have important social benefits for both you and your baby.

• Join a moms group in your community or start your own.
• Visit online parenting sites, many of which have tools you can use to connect with other moms in your area, such as justplaydates.ca.
• Check out libraries or community centers for mom and baby programs or drop-ins.
• Hang out in local parks where moms with kids of all ages congregate.
• Set up “play dates” with neighborhood moms who have kids close to yours in age.

Helping your toddler make friends

As your infant grows into toddlerhood, playing with friends becomes increasingly important. Initially, toddlers tend to play “beside” one another as opposed to “with” one another, but this is an important stage in their social development. Eventually, they’ll begin to interact and communicate with their peers as opposed to simply engaging in parallel play.

Giving kids exposure to other children is not the same as picking their friends for them, says Schafer. “You can’t decide who the right person is for your child to latch on to.” Children will naturally gravitate toward certain personalities no matter what you do, and that’s perfectly normal, she says.

Extroverted parents tend to worry if their toddler seems more introverted, but it’s important not to label kids as being shy. “A lot of parents have some fixed idea about how social their child should be, but some children have just one close friend and there’s nothing wrong with that.” If they have the talent to make a friend, then they have all the social skills they need, says Schafer.

Learning to play nicely

The 18-month mark is typically when altercations begin to arise in your child’s early relationships. When parents see a fight brewing, they’re often tempted to jump to the rescue, but it’s actually better to let children work things out themselves. “We need to be powerful in our parenting and teach kids to have a voice instead of just rescuing them,” says Schafer. “Many parents want to step in the moment there’s any kind of conflict, but it’s actually an opportunity for learning.”

When a playmate suddenly snatches your child’s toy, it’s important not to jump in and start scolding or comforting. Instead, act as a mediator and teach your toddler to speak up for herself, says Schafer. You can check in with your child and ask her, “do you like being treated that way?” And if she says no, tell her “then you need to speak up,” says Schafer.

Teach your child to communicate with her playmate by saying something like: “Can you tell your friend how you feel and say ‘I’m not done yet?’” Follow this by saying “your friend is asking for a turn when you’re done, can you find him and give him the toy when you’re finished?” This puts the control in the hands of your child instead of you simply saying “It’s his turn now,” and handing the toy over.

Toddler friendships can be a bit rocky at times and if things seem to be getting out of hand, it’s okay to step in as long as you do it without overreacting. “Hitting, biting and other aggressive behavior are often a sign that children are trying to connect,” says Schafer. “They’re just trying to figure out how to play and haven’t quite got it yet.” Your knee-jerk reaction may be to want to separate them, when sometimes you just need to redirect them toward cooperative play, she says. “You can say something like, ‘it looks like you really want to play with this boy, so how about we build a fort together?’”

Meet our expert:

Alyson Schafer is a psychotherapist and one of Canada's leading parenting experts. She is the best selling author of Breaking the Good Mom Myth (John Wiley and Sons 2006) and Honey, I Wrecked The Kids (John Wiley and Sons 2009). Her popular TV call-in show, The Parenting Show, is now in its fourth season. For more on her principles, rules and tools for parenting visit: alyson.ca