Helping kids make and keep friends: 10 proven strategies that make social success inevitable
Practical tools to help your child develop the empathy and social skills needed for healthy, long-term friendships.
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Developing and maintaining friendships is a dynamic process.
And that can present headaches for parents.
Most children experience some form of peer rejection throughout childhood.
One study found that even popular children were rejected about one quarter of the time when they approached children in school.
Most children experience social rejection and recover from it.
They move on and form constructive, worthwhile relationships with like-minded children, but some children benefit from additional support or coaching.
Several studies indicate that children can be coached in friendship skills; a supportive friendship coach can make a significant difference.
The strategies are simple and focus on teaching children a range of friendly behaviours, such as talking with others while playing, showing interest in others, smiling, offering help and encouragement when needed, being willing to share, and learning how to enter a game or social situation.
It is also useful to teach children alternatives to fighting and arguing when disagreements arise within groups.
Gender, giftedness and birth order matter
Gender impacts the ability to make friends. Girls are further advanced along the stages of friendship than boys during the primary school years.
Many boys need a parent to be their social coach, constantly reminding them of friendly behaviours and providing social scripts for tricky social situations, such as meeting a new friend, asking an adult for help and saying No to a peer or sibling who teases.
Gifted children are often further advanced along the continuum of friendship behaviours than their peers. They seek more intimate friendships at a much younger age than their peers. This challenges the perception that gifted children have poor social skills; it appears they have a different concept of friendship than those around them.
My birth order research reveals that second and middle children generally have more friends than firstborns. They are more adaptable and welcoming of children with different interests. Their negotiation skills, needed in the hurly-burly of playground politics, are more advanced, honed by years of practice of negotiating to get their needs met under the competitive eye of a firstborn.
Eldest children are more likely to be introverted, preferring to spend time with a smaller number of friends.
Regardless, all children benefit from exposure to supportive adults adept in coaching them in the art of making and keeping friends.
Coaching kids in the art of making and keeping friends
Here are ten ideas to help you coach your child in the art of making friends:
1. Put friendships on the conversation table
Establish a dialogue with your child about friendships so you can offer support when difficulties arise and provide ideas when needed.
Be upfront with your child and discuss the importance of building connections with children both inside and outside school.
Talk, don’t lecture.
Open lines of communication before children enter adolescence.
2. Identify what may be holding a child back
Identify and discuss any behaviour, such as teasing, bullying or self-centredness, that may prevent your child from making friends.
Sometimes a child’s remarks can irritate others to the extent that he or she is ostracised.
Others struggle sharing information about themselves, which is a no-no in the give-and-take game of friendships.
Don’t be squeamish. Be upfront with your child.
If they’re not great sharers, let them know, then set up situations that require them to share.
3. Put your coaching hat on
Teach social skills such as starting a conversation, being a good winner and loser, and holding others' interest during a conversation.
Playing games with family members is a great way for kids to pick up many of these skills.
Overt teaching - “Next time you want to play a game with……try……”
There are many ways to help kids acquire those skills. Including workshopping………
4. Workshop tricky scenarios
The social world for many children is far more challenging than the academic world.
Math is a breeze compared to meeting new friends, saying no to peer pressure or letting a friend know that their behaviour is annoying.
It helps to workshop different scenarios with kids, providing them with social scripts and alternative behaviours that they can try in sticky situations.
Next time they come to you with a problem, try workshopping different solutions with them.
5. Focus on soft power
Some children (okay, usually firstborns) struggle with keeping friends as they often use assertion (and aggression) rather than adaptability when they don’t get their own way.
Full-on assertion (”do it my way”) usually meets with rejection at some point.
Undoubtedly, soft power wins in the long run in the friendship arena.
Kids who can adapt, use humour, have a positive attitude, are helpful, and know how to stand up for themselves when behaviour is unjust or unfair do well with friendships.
These are all soft power skills that are the domain of firstborn girls, some secondborns and most youngest children.
6. Teach your child how to read the room
Children who struggle to make friends often charge in too quickly or hover too far away in play or social situations.
It helps to teach them to “read the room” in social situations. Encourage them to watch a group for 30 seconds to identify the game being played and the overall “vibe” before making an approach to join in.
This gives slow-to-warm-up personality types the chance to feel comfortable (and weigh different social options) in new situations and environments.
By coaching them to look for a natural entry point- like offering to retrieve a stray ball- you help them avoid the social friction that comes from awkward interruptions.
7. Leverage the “home ground” advantage
Social anxiety is often lower in a familiar environment.
Organise a “micro-playdate” with just one other child at your home, centred around a structured activity like Lego or baking. This controlled setting enables you to use friendship coaching in real time.
If a conflict arises over sharing, you can quietly pull your child aside to validate their frustration while helping them navigate the social “repair” needed to keep the play session going.
8. Develop a host mindset in your child
If your child likes to take charge and struggles with sharing, teach them how to be a good host.
Start by asking, “What does a good host do?” Make a list of behaviours that make others comfortable at home and in their company.
This shifts their focus from their own comfort to others’ comfort, building a foundation of empathy and emotional regulation.
9. Get them out and about
Encourage your child to participate in out-of-school activities or groups that offer opportunities to meet new people outside their school peer groups.
Friendships formed through shared interests are often very strong.
Birds of a feather flock together, so it’s more likely for children to find soul mates through shared hobbies and activities. Certainly, more likely than sitting at home in their bedroom………
10. Limit solitary activities
Alone time is really important for kids. It gives them the chance to process their day, relax, and feel comfortable in their own skin. However, it’s a balancing act.
Too much alone time means your child doesn’t have the opportunity to develop the basic skills they need to navigate the social world.
These skills don’t develop in a vacuum.
They develop through trial and error (and supportive coaching) in real-life, person-to-person situations.
So don’t be afraid to say “enough alone time.” Invite (or insist) them/they join the social world one interaction at a time.
Finally
Your goal as parents isn’t to collect friends for your children. It’s to help them develop the social “muscles” to connect when they want to, and the self-worth to be comfortable being alone.
Helping a child find their tribe is rarely about a single “grand gesture”; it is found in quiet, consistent social interactions in familiar and unfamiliar situations, as well as in supportive friendship coaching.
As you guide them through these challenges, remember that you aren’t just helping them find a friend for today—you are equipping them with the emotional intelligence to lead and connect for a lifetime.
Stay patient, keep the dialogue open, and celebrate the small “social wins.”
Their confidence will grow, one conversation, one interaction and one friendly gesture at a time.