Encourage Your Child to Make Friends
Parenting Tips for Your 51-52 Month Old Child
“Mom, can Tracy come over and play?”Sometimes you may feel you have heard that question one too many times. However, friends are an important part of a young child’s life. They teach life lessons that parents cannot teach. They provide emotional support, teach acceptable behavior, and teach important attitudes. Relationships with friends are similar to those with brothers and sisters. They are best friends one minute, and enemies the next.
Here are some tips for helping your child make friends more easily:
- Encourage your child to bring a friend home after preschool. Make sure they have adult supervision.
- Encourage your child to say hello every day to an unknown schoolmate. Teach your child social skills such as smiling, asking questions, and being friendly.
- Get together with others who have children near the age of your child.
- Help your child learn ways to deal with teasing by friends. Try this game: You say something negative (“That sweater is funny looking.”) and have your child come back with something positive (“I like this sweater my grandma made for me.”). Then switch roles and have fun with it because kids love to be silly while learning. Not only will your child learn good responses to teasing, but this can also help him develop a more positive outlook in general.
- Trust your child’s taste in friends. Unless there is something dangerous going on, tolerate your child’s friends. If your child does not like your best friend’s child, accept it. You may be disappointed that they do not get along, but it is not fair to insist that youngsters enjoy each other’s company, no matter how convenient it is for you.
Learn More About 51-52 Month Old Children
- Couples Can Increase Marital Satisfaction by Sharing Child Care
- Development and Characteristics of a 51-52 Month Old Child
- Establish Healthy Eating Habits Now So Children Will Have Them for a Lifetime
- Four-Letter Words Fascinate Children, But Horrify Parents
- Replace Myths about Brain Development with Facts
- Teach Children Ways to Cope with Anger
- Tips to Help Young Children Stop Using Four Letter Words or Swear Words
- Young Children Can Learn the Difference between Feeling Anger and Acting on Anger
- Your Child: 51-52 Months
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See our Resource Links for additional information on child care and development.
