ARTICLE: The importance of knowing your child´s friends

From the moment they start school, our children start making friends. Some we´ll like, others we would prefer they wouldn´t play with, but in the end, our children will end up spending time with others who may have different opinions, ideas or backgrounds. All these factors may or may not have positive or negative influences in our children. To fully understand any change in behavior due to a friendship it´s important that we know who our child is playing with at school or the playground. Talk to your child about his or her new friends. How they act, what do they play with, what movies they like. Ask your child´s teacher who his or her friends are. Try to meet the mothers of these children. By having this information, you can better guide your child and identify any changes in behavior that may be being caused by another classmate´s influence. In the end we can´t choose who our child will spend time with when they´re not with us. However, by identifying his or her friends, we can be a part of our child´s process of choosing who to play with.