Some friendships are full of ups and downs. photo credit: pixabay / littlewildflowerarts

Some friendships bring more pain than pleasure.

Your child might come home one day feeling happy and excited, only to feel hurt and confused the next day by the same friend.

If you’ve witnessed this scenario, you’ve probably told your child, “Stay away! This is not a healthy friendship!” But somehow your child keeps going back.

Minor disagreements are common in children’s friendships and are not a cause for concern. If the power balance seems about equal between friends, minor conflicts can be an opportunity for learning.

If kids want to keep their friends, they need to learn how to compromise and how to try again after a disagreement.

If your child tends to have a lot of minor squabbles with friends, you might want to talk about ways to solve conflicts besides simply insisting on their way.

For example:

• Ask questions to understand the other child’s perspective

• Suggest a third alternative

• Take turns choosing what to do

• Occasionally give in, as an act of kindness

But sometimes, the pattern is more troubling.

Enter the Controlling Frenemy

Research by Patricia Hawley at the University of Kansas and her colleagues points to a more dangerous type of relationship—friendship involving “bistrategic controllers,” the worst kind of frenemy.

These children are both very kind and very aggressive, especially to their friends, and they cleverly wield both strategies to enhance their social dominance.

Bistrategic controllers are skilled at understanding other people’s perspectives, but they use this knowledge to lie, argue, and manipulate in aggressive, self-promoting ways.

To the right people at the right times, bistrategic children dole out enough kindness to keep others hooked, and enough meanness to maintain or enhance their social status and keep others off balance.

Hawley has observed this bistrategic pattern in children from preschool through adolescence. Kids of all ages seem to be drawn to these socially powerful but strategically unkind children.

Bistrategic children are fun, exciting, and popular, but they’re also risky, because they can ruthlessly turn on their friends when it suits their interests.

What can you do if your child is caught in this dynamic?

Here are some possibilities:

Point out the pattern.

Kids live in the moment, so your child may need your help to recognize that this friend is sometimes nice and sometimes mean, and always focused on power and control.

Gentle questions will work better than impassioned sermons. Also, the pattern may be more clear if you focus on what your child observes about how this friend treats others rather than how they treat your child.

You might ask:
“What have you noticed about how Cara treats Phoebe?”
“What do you think that feels like for Phoebe?”
“Why do you think Phoebe keeps trying to be friends with Cara?”

You can also warn your child that if Cara talks meanly about Phoebe ((and others!) behind her back, she could very well be doing the same thing to your child.

Prepare your child to speak up.

Just telling your child, “Don’t be friends with her,” is unlikely to work, because the bistrategic kids are often at the center of the fun. But you can prepare your child to handle mean gestures when they happen.

Bistrategic kids are socially savvy, so they tend to flex their social power with vulnerable children. Being able to speak up confidently can make your child less of a target.

If the bistrategic frenemy is being kind, it’s okay for your child to hang out with her. But if the frenemy is being mean to your child, your child needs to call her on it and then walk away, if necessary.

For example, if the frenemy makes a mean comment to your child, your child can say in a calm but loud, carrying voice, “That was a mean thing to say.” Then walk away. If your child speaks loudly enough, other people will turn and look at the friend. Few children want to be publicly labeled mean.

If the frenemy sets up a game where your child always has the worst role, you child could say calmly, “This isn’t fun for me.” If nothing changes, your child should walk away.

Offer alternative friendships.

Sometimes kids tolerate ill-treatment from bistrategic frenemies because they believe they don’t have alternatives.

With younger children, you can arrange play dates with kinder kids.

With older children, you may be able to guide them toward outside activities that don’t involve the bistrategic friend. That could lead to healthier friendships.

Having another circle of friends can be very comforting to children when they hit a rough spot with their school friends.

Talk about values.

In a sense, bistrategic controllers are social virtuosos. But treating others with cruelty is just plain wrong.

Talk with your child about what real friendship means. Most kids mention loyalty and kindness—qualities that frenemies show inconsistently.

Encourage your child to reflect on how they feel when they’re with a friend who runs hot and cold versus a steady, warm friend.

And let them know you believe it’s worth being that steady, warm friend themselves.

If your child is stuck in a friendship that is more painful than fun, I have something that can help.

My workshop, Dealing with Feelings about Friends, is a practical, kid-friendly course that uses relatable cartoons and simple strategies to show how to deal with the big emotions that come up in friendships and what kids can do when those relationships get complicated.

When you sign up this month, you’ll also get two useful resources to help your child build on what they’ve learned:
– How a Feelings Story Works – a printable tool that helps kids think through what happened and how to move forward.
– Keep Exploring Feelings About Friends with Dr. Friendtastic – a curated playlist of six 5-minute podcast episodes about big emotions like anger, embarrassment, and guilt, with advice kids can use.

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Warm wishes,
Eileen

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