Friendships

Dear Girl Mom,

What a joy it is to have friends, especially close ones that know us deeply. Every girl truly longs for friendship. Some enjoy one dear friend; one who knows them inside and out. Others enjoy a group of many friends, ranging in depths of acquaintances to soulmates.

But, what about when struggles happen within those friendships?

Mean girls? Drama? Social media blocks and conversations remaining on "read"?

How do we help our girls navigate conflict in a healthy manner? How do we encourage our quieter girls in the creating and maintaining of friendships?

Sustaining friendships as adults is difficult enough, but parenting through the seasons of friendships with our daughters can be even more challenging.

We pray this post will be a gift of encouragement, and help you navigate the ebb and flow of fostering friendships in your daughter’s life.

Love,

Stacy & Nicole

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So, the inevitable question on each of our minds is:

Were you a big fan of the Friends sitcom? Are you still?

We cannot help but think of this iconic show when considering the topic of friendship!

Obviously, there were times where each of the friends on the show were in conflict with one another. It never was all sunshine and roses! There were difficult conversations to be had, and despite some of the questionable choices here and there, Friends was a terrific show demonstrating what real, genuine, lifelong friendship looks like.

Why Friendships?

In taking a step back in time and considering high school days, Nicole and I can recall how our circle of friends were all extremely close. It was genuine friendship, fights and all! Yet, once we graduated and moved away from high school, we witnessed how we all simply lost touch. The reality that we cannot stay friends with everyone we cross paths within life for always and forever is quite simply a very sobering truth.

While a sweet friendship refreshes the soul, unfortunately there truly are times where there seems to be a season of drought. As with any relationship, we all have to step into friendships knowing there will be hard days and times. That can be one of the single reasons why it hurts so much to watch our girls go through phases of drought when it comes to friendships. We personally know this truth from our own lives, yet watching it play out in our beloved daughters' lives is altogether heart-wrenching. When friendships fade, it can definitely be heartbreaking.

Simply put, we are ever-changing and ever-growing. As a result, and in God’s sovereign wisdom, He perfectly places people in our lives for us to be in community with. Likewise, it is all within a specific time and place.

Likewise, as a paradigm shift, it has been helpful for us to consider a perspective of seeing who God keeps in your life, and for what purpose. Through prayer and intentionality, we have discovered it to be all right to maintain near and dear friendships, while allowing grace-space for those whom we seem to lose touch with or disconnect from. With no ill-will or guilt, simply moving toward the practice of praying for them and wishing them the best is altogether healthy for all relationships involved. Ultimately, seasons of friendships aren't a bad thing, and it does our souls well to remember that it’s all part of the design.

Sometimes friendships change as a season of life changes. Consider how God designed the seasons, and how comparatively there are also seasons within our own lives. There is a great, divine purpose behind it (consider Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). Friends are there to learn from, laugh with, and to grow alongside. Hopefully we offer the same in return with our reciprocated friendship.

Consider this recent information reported on the Today show website and taken from a recent study:

• It takes about 40-60 hours of time spent together in the first few weeks after meeting for people to form a casual friendship.

• To transition from a casual friend to friend takes about 80-100 hours of together time.

• For friends to become good or best friends, it takes about 200 or more hours spent together.

Seeking Friendships in Today's Culture

Nicole and I were genuinely curious over how each of our own daughters' viewed friendship in today's world and culture. Was it much the same as we viewed friendships when we were once adolescents, or were there stark differences?

We decided to ask our daughters what different friendships have taught them, and the ways they have grown because of those people in their lives. We were blown away by their articulation and authentic responses.

• What helps certain friendships sustain through tough seasons and what makes others fade away?

" I believe the answer to this question is communication. I’ve seen communication play a HUGE role in the friendships that I still have today. Since moving (across country) for college, I have realized that in order to make a long distance friendship work, communication is important. I’ve watched a lot of my friendships with people I cared about fall apart quickly because once I moved, we lost communication. It’s hard to sustain a true friendship especially when your miles apart from each other, but when you figure out a strong balance involving communication, I believe it can better the friendship."

-17 year old

"Sustaining a friendship takes both people being committed. If it’s one sided, the friendship isn’t going to last long. To keep the friendship going through tough seasons, you just want to be sure you’re there for them. Have deeper conversations beyond what just happened during the day and surface level things. Discuss real problems you’re going through. This means being vulnerable."

-15 year old

"How I keep friendships strong is keeping in touch and calling them a lot but not enough to annoy them."

-11 year old

• What do you find important in a friend?

"A good friend is someone who constantly checks up on you and you talk to a lot and hang out with a lot. They’ll help you and give you advice when you need it."

-15 year old

"I find communication and trust important qualities that a true friend must have. I believe that in order to make any type of relationship work, you need to have good communication between both parties. Without trust, it’s hard to establish those true and meaningful friendships with the right people."

-17 year old

"What I find important in a friend is loyalty to keep secrets when I need them to. Also, always being there for me when I need them most."

-11 year old

• What valuable lessons have you learned in going through tough situations with friendships over the course of your life?

"I’m still young and I am well aware that I have, hopefully, many more years left in my life. However, I have learned to always be myself no matter what. I learned that at an age much younger than I am now.

I think that with being yourself and being the best version of yourself, you will naturally attract the good relationships into your life. I’ve learned that there will be negative relationships that also are brought into your life, but you are the person who gets to pick who and how you want your life to look. If there is a negative influence in your life, get rid of it and find a more positive relationship to replace it with.

I’ve had multiple experiences where I’ve had to watch relationships fall apart where I was very close with the individual, but I have learned that everything happens for a reason and that reason could be beneficial for me and my future, given time."

-17 year old

"As far as valuable lessons learned, I think it depends on the situation and the individual friendship. It’s important to remember that you can’t expect your friend to know exactly what to do, or to react the way you’d react to things if you were in their shoes. We can all say 'if I was my own friend things would be fine!' But you can’t expect someone to do exactly what you want them to - no one is a mind reader. This is where there’s room for grace. Friendships fade usually because you’ve stopped communicating in one way or another. If you talk about surface level things and you don’t have that strong connection, it’s easy for a friendship to fall apart."

-15 year old

What Do We do About Our Girls' Struggle with Friendships?

It all boils down to this simple truth: friendships are complicated and very personal.

No doubt it is one of the main reasons alone that we as moms are so concerned over friendships for our daughters. Added to how complicated and personal they are, there is the added concern over how friendships aren't merely for connection, but they also influence. The right friendship can influence our girls in so many positive ways. Likewise, quite the opposite can also be true: the company our girls keep will influence their attitude and behavior.

Renowned Christian author and mother of three, Rebekah Lyons, has written a devotional entitled, A Surrendered Yes. One of her chapters is ironically on the very topic of friendships, and it resonates deeply. She writes:

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"When I stopped focusing on myself, when I focused on how I could love friends well, encourage them, and show up for their most important moments and needs, everything changed.

What if we let God be in charge of our friendships? What if we trusted that he places the right people in our lives at the right times? When we’re authentic, when we bless and love, we find a community of love. It’s this community that gives us the courage to go out into the world as the blessing we were made to be."

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These words seem to be but the very steppingstones for helping guide us as moms in showing our daughters everything they need when it comes to friendship. What if we let God be in charge of our friendships, and more specifically, our daughters' friendships?

What if we each turn to Jesus with our hope, desire, trust, and prayer that He alone will place the right people in our lives at the right time(s)?

In her book, Praying the Scriptures for your Children , Jodie Berndt provides specific scripture for praying about friendship and specifically those friendship relationships in your daughter’s life. For instance, we can kneel before our Maker and pray for God to surround our girls with friends, but to also use them as salt and light among their spheres of influence.

In the same manner of trust, we can bow and pray our daughters would choose friends wisely. We can pray a hedge of protection straight from 1 Corinthians 15:33 upon where it states: Do not be misled: Bad company corrupts good character.

Furthermore, we can turn to the Lord and pray our daughters will know the power of forgiveness and the joy that comes from apologizing, reconciling, and working through conflict quickly before it divides and separates.

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Be the friend you wish to have.

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If we are each seeking and modeling what it looks like to be the friend we each wish to have, and we are meditating on scripture, then we can trust full well that our actions will strive to put the other first. God will be faithful to place the desire in your heart to work through conflict respectfully, find boundaries for your words, and enter into the struggle of being kind and not jealous.

So, in closing, we invite you to join together to pray for our daughters, be the kind of friend they wish to have, as well as trusting God to guide them in finding this incredible kind of friend.

Abba Father,

We invite You in to be our Light and our Guide when it comes to developing and growing friendships. We ask for Your provision of friends for our daughters, and that our daughters will draw near and listen to Your still, small voice that shares wisdom, love, and insight. We lift our daughters up to You and pray that they might find the strength in You to be the friend they wish to have.

We are so grateful for your everlasting love, grace, and mercy.

Amen