Children present all sorts of problems and difficulties to their parents when they are born into this world. Some kids have emotional difficulties or physical problems. Others seem to do well at first but then struggle with some aspect of their lives when they get older. Life is unpredictable and so are children; you never know who you are going to get when you decide to have a child. While most parents want to maintain faith in their children they don’t always keep faith in their friends. It is a common problem of parents to not like the friends of their children. However, this is a very tricky situation because you don’t want to offend your children and you obviously don’t want to turn your children against you. There are few things that will turn a child against you more than turning against one of their cherished friends. Even if that friend is a bad influence on your son or daughter, they will resent any interference in the friendship. Although you may be able to see much more clearly than your child does when it comes to their friends, you interfere with their lives in a way that always offends when you try to cut them off from their friends. Because most kids, and especially teenagers, are trying to gain some sense of control over their lives, telling them that they cannot spend time with particular people is a difficult thing to hear. So what should you do if you don’t like your child’s friends? Can you simply demand that they never see them again? Can you punish your children if they do spend time with friends with whom you disapprove?
These are difficult questions to answer because the situation will be different for different people. In most cases, however, it is almost impossible to simply tell your child to not spend time with certain people. You can try this technique, but you will find that your demands will not be met in many cases, and especially if your child is a teenager. You can try to explain to your child why spending time with a certain friend is not a good idea. This is a good first step, but beyond this there is only so much you can do. Another tactic is to reward your children depending on who they spend time with. You could, for example, support get togethers with friends who you approve of and disallow get together with others. After all, it is your house and you can decide who is allowed inside and who is not.
If you can find no other way to get your children away from friends that you disapprove of, you could try placing them in a new school. However, this is usually just a temporary fix because you child might just find new inappropriate friends. The best policy in this sticky situation is to help your child meet friends who will have a good influence on them. This makes it so that you don’t have to fight with them about their friends. As they make new friendships with good kids they will forget about their relationships with the other ones. Many kids make friends with bad influences because they are trying to be rebellious. What this should teach you is that telling them not to hang out with these people is useless. In doing so you only show your children a better way to rebel against you. Help them to find new friends and your problem will be solved.