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Tips for Dealing with BFFs (Best Friends Forever)

Any parent with a teen or tween knows just how important their child's best friend can be. In fact, friends are one of the most important factors in your child's life. Peer pressure may be an issue as well, but the best friend can be a good influence or a negative one. For the most part, your child's BFFs is here to stay, so it helps to know what to expect and how to handle BFFs relationships.

BFFS: Short and Long Term Friends

One of the things that drives parents crazy is that 'best friends" often change frequently. While your child may be best friends with someone this week, two weeks from now she may have moved on to someone else. It may be a little frustrating for you, but it is a normal part of growing up.

Parenting Tips to Help Manage BFFs:

Your teen or tween doesn't mean to drive you nuts with her BFFs relationships. To help keep from pulling your hair out, take a look at the following tips.

  • Discuss what a healthy friendship looks like. Have a talk about what it means to be a friend and how someone acts when they are a good friend.
  • Set a good example by having healthy friendships yourself. That way your child can see what good friendships look like.
  • Be there to listen and offer advice if your child needs it when issues arise. Especially between girls, there is a lot of competition and jealousy, which may make your child need someone they can confide in.
  • Be gentle in your approach to steer your child in a different direction if you don't like her best friend. If you push too hard, it may backfire. Instead, try keeping her busy and suggest other friends to hang out with.
  • Try to keep close tabs on what your child does with her BFFs, especially if you aren't sure her BFFs is a good influence. Make sure they always have appropriate adult supervision.

Having a best friend is a part of growing up, even if that BFFs changes from month to month. BFFs fulfill an import role in your child's development. Your role is to help her learn about healthy friendships.