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The impact friends have on your child’s development, personality, habits, and even long-term success as an individual are immeasurable. As such it is a parent’s responsibility to make sure a child keeps the right company, even though, strictly speaking it is impossible to choose one’s friends for them. Here are a few things you can do to guide your child’s friendship decisions.

Child planning

Assuming you keep good company, it’s worthwhile discussing with your siblings, cousins and friends when you all plan to have children. Ensuring your children are not born too far apart makes it possible for your children to grow up amongst other good children who’ve come from a good home with people you know and trust. This is one of the oldest tricks in the world, but it works so well, it’s a conversation still worth having.

Environment

Ensuring your children have the right friends is highly dependent on the environment they’re raised in. Herein we’re talking the neighbourhood you bring them up in, the schools you send them to, the extra curricular sporting activities you help cultivate an interest in and so on. Economic limitations aside, think carefully about the type of people certain communities and institutions produce and raise your children in places like that.

Teach your children good values

Outside of ‘colluding’ with friends to have your children become mates as well, the last thing a parent can do in ensuring a child has the right friends is teaching your young one good values.

If honesty, loyalty, patience, caring and kindness are important values in your home, your child could well expect that of the company they keep. If this happens, you’re well on your way to helping your child pick the right friends from the get-go.

Never impose directly, but be mindful of steering your child’s friendship decisions with other tools at your disposal.

Tags: friends, social skills, young children