A girl was brought to me once, her mother claiming she had no friends. Nowhere, it seemed.
They’d switched schools twice, tried different clubs and activities, even moved house. Her mother constantly reassures her that the kids who don’t want to be friends simply can’t appreciate her properly. She tells her daughter that next time—who knows which time this will be?—good friends will come along who will value and want to be with her.
The girl desperately believes her mother’s comforting story but is growing frustrated with the world—why haven’t these good friends arrived yet?
She sits across from me, sulking, nearly in tears.
I move a bit closer, take her hands, and quietly ask, “How do you know that no one wants to be your friend? Do they avoid you? Ignore your hello? Refuse your help? Never acknowledge your requests?”
Surprised, she replies, “No… I just sit there and no one comes over.”
“You realize you’ll be sitting there for a long time if this is how you wait for friends, don’t you?” I smile gently, “I hate to break it to you, but friends won’t just appear out of thin air.”
“Why not?” she asks, her tears beginning to flow.
“Because wanting friends isn’t enough if you don’t know the main rule about friendship.”
“I do know!” she insists.
“Oh? Enlighten me.”
“When you’re friends, everyone SHARES with ME, invites ME to everything, tells ME everything, and loves ME.”
“And what do you do?”
“I walk around with them.”
“That’s quite the reward. A queue should be forming up right now…” I say with a touch of sarcasm, then continue more seriously, “But really, can you genuinely take an interest in other people’s lives?”
Even if they’re not classmates… Tell me, what does your mom like? When is she upset? Do you ever ask her how she’s doing, how you might help when she’s tired? What about your dad? Your brother? Or anyone else you know?”
“But I don’t have to! I’m just 10!” she exclaims.
“You’re ALREADY 10,” I reply calmly, and together, we begin to learn about friendship.
It’s not her fault, of course.
She’s certainly not alone; many kids think this way. It’s our modern parenting style. In our child-centered world, we often don’t consider that children should learn not just to take, but to give as well.
We, as parents, have turned into entertainers, feeling immediate guilt when we see our child is bored.
We rush to amuse them or hand them a phone, and later they’re unable to entertain themselves, always demanding new diversions and blaming us for their boredom.
Few parents think to say they’re bored of hearing their child complain about being bored.
It’s important to say it, though, to spark different thinking processes, which can lead to a healthy relationship with themselves and the world around them.
Every nursery, every primary school I’ve observed, feels like a gathering of little royalty. They’ve not been taught to be interested in anyone but themselves.
Rampant egocentrism is everywhere, and I’m not exaggerating.
We’re constantly at their service, and they grow up seeing us only as wish-fulfillers. They see the same in each other, too, which is why they struggle to form genuine friendships—they boast about gadgets and then go their separate ways.
We raise them as if we’re preparing them for a throne, not for living in the real world among people.
This trend needs to stop.
It’s time to teach them the essential condition of all meaningful relationships—from friendship to love—RECIPROCITY.
It’s long overdue, folks.
