Be vigilant soon to be year 9 parents, there may be some bad choices in the friend department coming!

Be vigilant soon to be year 9 parents, there may be some bad choices in the friend department coming!

Up until this point you may have had quite a bit of sway in regards to your child’s friends. In primary you could make the excuses regarding tea invites and parties; your teenager may have stuck with the same set of friends from primary in year 7 and part of 8 of secondary school. Then year 9 comes and it seems that yourself and your teenager are talking a different language about friends.

This is the time to be on the ball about all things, the peak period for peer influence is 13. This is when they are experiencing themselves as a truly separate other. They are flexing their autonomy muscles and seeing where the limit is. In my experience the period after Christmas of year 9 was when I really had to make it clear what I would accept and what I wouldn’t. Parents of teenage clients also say the same thing to me. That year 9 is the tipping point or the ‘game changer’ as one dad said.

The first thing to notice is that they will start to dress like their peer group and more annoyingly, talk like them. Sometimes in a bid to fit in they become an extreme worst version of themselves.

My daughter went through this with a friend in year 9, they were poles apart in their interests and also how seriously they took school and school work. I got a call from school one day about my daughter using bad language. There was a consequence put in place and we moved on.

When I met the friend, she was polite and courteous. Nothing to be troubled about, but my daughter’s attention and focus at home and school continued to nose dive. I caught her smoking, school sympathised and suggested that ‘she is easily led’. It was a nice way of saying that the friend was making the negative difference. Although my daughter is very spirited and is not an angel.

I knew that cutting the friendship off would only encourage her to want it more. So at every opportunity I did the following:

·       I tried not to sound to judgemental and considered a reasoned point of view to put across.

·       I put into place some non-negotiables re sleeping over (she wasn’t allowed as the friend was allowed more freedom than my daughter)

·       I spoke to my daughter about risky behaviour such as smoking, drinking and drugs (they don’t talk about this in school as much anymore, legal highs are the hot topic.

·       THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE. At every opportunity given to me by my daughter, I emphasized the differences between them. When she moaned about her, when she celebrated her, when they both chose there GCSE options, when she struggled to get on with the friend’s other friends. I pointed out how different they were and that maybe that was the cause of the frustration. I suggested she was more responsible and could see that there were differences and then I left it alone.

·       I made sure we were doing stuff in the holidays.

·       I encouraged her to get a job.

·       I asked school to speak to the teachers and maybe suggest they were in different work groups in class.

·       I pointed out that she was exhausted with the high drama that the friend always had going on.

Eventually after a break from snapchat (my daughter’s choice) and a really honest discussion about the way other people were starting to see her. She chose to back off from the friend, at this point I encouraged sleep overs with old friends. She helped me more with general stuff and I was flexible in my response to her making arrangements with other friends and wanting lifts.

What I am wanting is for my daughter to feel I am responsive and that I have set clear boundaries in an assertive way while still listening to her views and wishes. I don’t want her to feel I emotionally control her, but that I am flexible in my approach.

I admit with boys it is different, it is much harder to gently influence the friend choices as they do tend to chat less to their parents about friends than girls do. The only piece of advice I have on this, is that you welcome him and his friends to hang out at your house to Xbox or whatever, better he is in your home with not great friends than hanging around away from home.

I wish I could offer more advice, but sometimes you’ve just got to ride the wave and hope the not so good friends fall away. What I wanted to convey in this blog is that year 9 is the gamechanger.