Over the past few weeks, we have explored together how friendships in middle childhood can be fun and fulfilling, but also tricky at times. Children in this stage are still learning how to understand others, manage their feelings, solve problems, and find their place within a group.
As a spacecraft moves further away from Earth’s atmosphere towards its destination, mission control cannot take over the steering wheel when the ride gets bumpy – they can only advise and navigate to the best of their ability. As parents, we are essentially mission control: we don’t take over the controls, but we offer guidance and navigation when necessary.
Much of a child’s social development happens through ordinary, everyday experiences — at school, on the sports field, during interactions with peers, and right at home within the family. Our relationships with our children provide many opportunities for them to experience, observe and make sense of relationships with others.
Here are a few simple ways your everyday interactions as a parent can support your child’s social development.
Going on a spacewalk
Every opportunity to experience friendship provides children with opportunities to learn and grow socially. Whether spending time with peers at school, during sports, through hobbies, at family gatherings, or simply having a friend or two over, these experiences give children opportunities to develop and practise social skills.
However, the goal isn’t to force your child to be more social. Rather, it is about offering opportunities that fit with their personal preferences and temperament. Children differ in how comfortable they feel in social situations, and they do not all develop their social skills in exactly the same way or at exactly the same pace.
Other air traffic on the radar
In middle childhood, children gain a growing awareness that other people think and feel differently than they do. They begin to realise that opinions can differ and that more than one perspective can co-exist. As parents, we can support this growing awareness through gentle questions during everyday conversations, such as: “I wonder how that made them feel?” or “I wonder if there’s another way of looking at this?”
There does not always have to be one right answer. Sometimes it is simply about helping children pause and consider what another person might be thinking or feeling.
Docking at the emotional space station
Friendship can bring up big feelings: excitement, happiness, jealousy, anger, disappointment, embarrassment and hurt. Even when these emotions feel overwhelming, they are a natural part of being human. Crucially, feeling an emotion is different from acting on it.
Helping our children notice and sit with a feeling, instead of immediately rushing in to fix the problem, can provide opportunities to develop emotional regulation. Children are still developing their ability to manage strong emotions during middle childhood, while their social worlds are becoming increasingly complex.
Sometimes, therefore, the most helpful response is simply to acknowledge the feeling: “That sounds really disappointing.” or “I can see that you’re angry.” Before trying to solve the problem, we can give children a moment to pause and process what they are experiencing on an emotional level – in a way taking a moment to dock at the emotional space station.
Allowing your astronaut to do the driving
Yes, sometimes parents do need to step in, like when a child is experiencing bullying. But not every friendship problem needs an adult to take the wheel. This step can be difficult for parents. However, when we step back, act as mission control, and allow our children to navigate the complexities of friendship themselves, we help them build lasting skills. By exploring in an encouraging way with open-ended question, such as: “What do you think happened?”, “What could you do next?”, or “What do you think might happen if you tried that?”, we scaffold their problem-solving without taking the wheel.
Rather than immediately providing the solution, we can help children think through the situation thus growing their skills.
The mission of mission control
Like mission control, we can be there in the background: watching, listening, offering guidance when needed, and trusting our little astronauts to do some of the navigating themselves.
References
Carr, A. (2017). Social and emotional development in middle childhood. In D. Skuse, H. Bruce, & L. Dowdney (Eds.), Child psychology and psychiatry: Frameworks for clinical training and practice (3rd ed., pp. 83–90). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119170235.ch10
Gottman, J. M., Katz, L. F., & Hooven, C. (1996). Parental meta-emotion philosophy and the emotional life of families: Theoretical models and preliminary data. Journal of Family Psychology, 10(3), 243–268. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.10.3.243
McHale, S. M., Dariotis, J. K., & Kauh, T. J. (2003). Social development and social relationships in middle childhood. In R. M. Lerner, M. A. Easterbrooks, & J. Mistry (Eds.), Handbook of psychology: Volume 6. Developmental psychology (pp. 241–265). John Wiley & Sons.
Sørlie, M.-A., Hagen, K. A., & Nordahl, K. B. (2021). Development of social skills during middle childhood: Growth trajectories and school-related predictors. International Journal of School & Educational Psychology, 9(Suppl. 1), S69–S87. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683603.2020.1744492
Disclaimer: This blog is provided for psychoeducational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose or treat psychological or mental health conditions and should not replace an individual assessment or professional advice from a registered healthcare practitioner.
