This article is one of a three-part series designed to help kids and parents begin the school year smoothly. Monday’s story covered what to do when children don’t want to go to school, and Wednesday’s story will focus on parental concerns about their school’s decisions.
As your child heads back to school, they’re probably thinking about who their friends will be this year.
Ninety percent of parents think their kids want to make more friends, according to the 2024 C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. That’s good, because healthy friendships can make kids happier, improve their self-esteem and resilience, and protect against loneliness and depression.
In my decade of speaking to parents, students and educators about how to handle kids’ screen time, I’ve repeatedly heard that young people are struggling to keep up true friendships. That phenomenon could partly be because so many kids confuse the number of online followers they have with close relationships. What’s more, all the time kids are spending on screens is time they’re not learning how to interact with peers face-to-face.
Here’s the good news: “Children naturally make friends,” said Anna Seewald, a Princeton, New Jersey-based psychologist and host of the “Authentic Parenting” podcast.
