Moms Talk: Avoiding Poor Influences

This week, let's talk about the influences you might not want your kids around. Namely, "that friend."

You don't want your child at "so-and-so's" house for a certain reason, such as secondhand smoke or improper supervision. So how do you back out of a play date and steer clear of unsavory characters, be it neighbors, schoolmates or acquaintances, without hurting feelings?

Lisa May
We have our home open to all of our children's friends. If they are here, we can monitor what they watch and do. Since my children are young (the oldest is 11), we have not had too many problems.

I always encourage them to pick their friends wisely. I don't want to discriminate, but I do believe that you are a reflection of who you hang out with. 

We have had some children that I have visually seen treat mine not so friendly. If it continues, we will not have our children get together with them until they can treat our children with respect.

Having true friendships is so valuable in life. I do hope that my three children will continue to value it, as well, and select others with their values. 

This is kind of ironic, because I was talking with my husband about this Saturday night. I wish that when I was younger that my parents would have helped me more in this area.  

Jennifer AuBuchon
Well being the mom with the oldest kids, I guess I've had more experience in this area... though I'm no pro! It's still tricky, and in some ways getting more so every day.

It was easy when they were young since, like many have stated, their friends were our friend's children or cousins.  As we moved up in years, I became really involved at my kid's school.  You get a really good sense of who you want your kids to hang around and who you don't that way.  

Additionally, I've even received unsolicited input from teachers at times.  One of my kids was really nice to a "troubled" child.  The teacher was very upfront and said that we could have that kid to our house, but not to let our child go to their home.  I really appreciated that, especially since it was done in such a way that she didn't disclose any "private" information...just a general "warning."

Now that my oldest is in middle school (almost high school...ugh!), it's so much harder!  There isn't any way to totally protect your kids, but I've tried to build a strong network of "mom friends" who can fill me in on kids that I don't know.  Usually, someone, somehow knows the kid in question.  

I also think it's extremely important to monitor your child's social networking.  I've learned so much about middle schoolers by scanning through her Facebook page.  I am shocked that more parents don't do that (at least I don't think they do by the things many of these kids say and do on there).  My kids know that if they ever set privacy controls so that I cannot access their information, they lose the privilege of social networking.  It's that simple.  

You'd be surprised how much you can learn about youth culture this way.  Luckily, my kids are both pretty good judges of character too.  I trust them, and have gone through many scenarios of "what to do ifs."  I know that they'll make mistakes along the way, but I'm praying that the way we're raising them and the support system we've established around them will carry them a long way.   

Samantha Goswami
In the past few months I have been telling the kids how important the influence of friends are. I was telling them how they need to stay in touch with friends for life.   I still keep in touch with many of my childhood friends even though we are so far apart geographically.  

I typically don’t let the kids out on too many play dates unless I know the parents. When called for a play date, I simply say we have other plans if I do not feel safe that my child goes to that house and explain to my child why I would not like them to go, not always an easy thing to do.

We have been in situations where my child has not wanted to invite a specific person to their birthday party and we then have a talk about why.  When there is a valid reason I will tend to agree with my child.

Jenny Wescoat
Our kids have not had too many problems with this, mostly because their friends still tend to be the children of our friends! Everything changes with school, though, and we have run into a bump or two along the way. We talk a lot about making good choices, and so far I've been really happy with the friends my son has chosen at school. 

We've had one situation come up where a really great family invited our son to go do something he's not allowed to do. It was awkward because I really like them and it was the first time they had called him to go on an outing with them. But I was honest and they were very nice about it, and our kids have had several play dates together since then. 

This is all pretty awkward, in general. I am always encouraging my son to invite friends from school to our house, but I'm not sure what to do if the invitation were reciprocated from a family we don't know. I'm kind of skating right now on children of close friends and the wealth of cousins in our family. How do you get to know these families without organizing big family play dates? Or is that the norm now?