Forming friendships is not easy for adults, because this knowledge is mainly a skill that is acquired through experience, but young people - mostly - need help and guidance to know who is a good friend, and what is a harmful friendship that drains their childhood energies.
In previous generations, parents' opinion was enough to judge a friend, but this method will not be in line with today's children, and the rules of positive parenting have always warned against using command and prohibition methods in raising children, in order to preserve the independence of their personalities.
So what is the solution?
How do parents guide their children to be aware of abusive friendships, and when do parents intervene to warn their son that his friend in the classroom or on the soccer team is not a true friend as he thinks?
The rules of positive parenting always warn against the command and prohibition of raising children in order to preserve the independence of their personalities (Shutterstock)
Who is the toxic friend?
American psychotherapist Sarah Paul - a mother of three children - stated that her experience inherited from her family never made her able to help her children in this aspect, but her experience in relationships and her close relationship with her children made her able to guide them properly.
But Sarah, with her experience in psychological therapies, was able - in her article published on the "Motherly" website - to identify a toxic person, a definition that applies even to the world of children's relationships.
Paul explains that a toxic friend is someone who the longer you are with him, the more you feel his negative effect on you, as if you ate something spoiled, and you keep feeling tired you don't know the exact cause, and he is someone who is usually described as controlling, jealous and consuming others completely.
The toxic friend the longer you are with him, the more you feel his negative effect on you, as if you ate something rotten (Shutterstock)
Signs of a toxic friend
Your child becomes very anxious about his appearance, clothes, favorite things, family and home.
Your child becomes hyper-focused on one friendship.
Your child is rebelling against the rules, whether at home or at school.
Your child's life revolves around his friend only.
Your child complains about going to school.
Sometimes your child tells you that he's being pressured to do things he doesn't want to.
Based on all of the above, Paul believes that if your child is 5-11 years old and is experiencing a toxic friendship, it is imperative that you intervene, especially at the elementary level, where children look to their parents to share their life experiences.
Listening to the child is important in building a bridge to connect with his mindset (Shutterstock)
How do parents intervene?
It is never a good idea to ask a child to remove a toxic friend from their life, as this will never work, and sometimes dealing with a toxic friend can be less harmful than having no friends at all.
Instead, help your child understand what a healthy relationship looks like. Listening to your child is important in building a bridge to their mindset.
It is also useful to ask open questions and build trust with children, monitor the relationship from afar, and encourage them to build new friendships, through all of this, you will make your child's distance from his toxic friend easy for him, instead of experiencing a psychological crisis.
Help your teen understand what a healthy relationship between friends looks like (Shutterstock)
Toxic teenage friend
In most cases, the signs of a toxic friend will not differ from the previous stage, perhaps even more so if your child imitates his friend in the way he talks or in his clothes, which is completely different from what he was brought up on.
Some of his behaviors may change, he starts smoking, or watching pornographic sites, and enters the stage of obsession with his appearance, degrees, or relationships with the opposite sex.
In an article by Sherry Gordon, anti-bullying advocate and author of many books for teens, sticking with friends is one of the most unhealthy traits of adolescence and unhealthy friendships, and has a huge impact on the rest of his life.
At this point, teens begin to prioritize their friendships with their peers more during middle school and high school, and are more likely to be bullied and develop negative habits and behaviors, depending on who they spend time with.
A child's resistance to your interference in his relationships is something that will often happen, so be prepared for that and do not despair the first time (Shutterstock)
How do you act as a mother to a teenager?
The child's resistance to your interference in his life and relationships is something that will often happen, so be prepared for that and do not despair the first time.
Encourage your child to keep his distance from the friend, and reinforce the idea that connecting with a friend who does not treat him with kindness and respect causes him a lot of pain and distress.
Perhaps your child's attachment to the unhealthy relationship is due to his perception of the difficulty of making new friends, and here you can discuss your child's fears, and help him overcome them, by inviting other friends and exploring new activities that bring him closer to others, and give him examples of your close relationships with friends he knows.
It is necessary to know that you will not be able to prevent the presence of toxic friends in your child's life, this is part of their life experience, but rather it develops them with many social skills, but what is required of you is only to mitigate the damage to your child, and make him able to overcome the abusive relationships in his life without feeling guilty towards abusive people.