Parent Resource - A tool for navigating friendships

Welcome to the second Parent resource episode so far! 

For ease I use the word 'parent' but please know, however you are showing up for girls in your world you are welcome.

I'd love to hear how you found this episode + if navigating friendships is something taking up your mind, heart and time at the moment. My guess is it is!

*There's a Starry Resource episode on Friendships to go along this one for your girls to listen to. Also in this episode we mention the amazing business Pippin Girl. You can check out their website HERE.

Check out our incredible empowering affirmation card decks + journals on our website www.stardustsquad.com.au

If you'd like to get in touch, maybe you have an episode request, you can email us at hellostardustsquad@gmail.com.au

Subscribe to get notified of when our next episode drops!
See you in the galaxies!

Transcript

0:00

This episode is a parent resource, so won't be relatable for younger listeners. Hi, my name is Pearl. At Stardust Squad, we respectfully acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we gather, create, explore, and dream, the Gunnaikurnai people. We pay our respects to their elders past and present and recognize their ongoing connection to the land, the seas, and the skies. We acknowledge that this land has been a place of learning and storytelling for thousands of years and honor the wisdom and stories of Indigenous people. As we continue on our Stardust adventures, we commit to building a sense of belonging. Welcoming and respect for all cultures, identities and beliefs. May we walk gently upon this land, guided by the styles and spirits of those who came before us. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Stardust squad we shine so bright, twinkling in the sky at night. Hand in hand we laugh and play, dreaming big every day. Sparkle high and sparkle low, together we let our magic grow. Girls of strength, girls of light, Stardust squad we take flight. Clap once, clap twice, then spin around. In Stardust squad we're safe and sound, shining strong we lift each other. Sisters of stars like none other. Welcome to the Stardust Squad pod, a space in the galaxies to empower, inspire, and encourage girls and their families. I'm Evie, creator of the Stardust Squad. I believe now, more than ever, we need to be empowering and supporting our girls to have bold voices and big hearts. Today, this is a parent episode and we're talking all about friendships for our girls. Oh, this is a huge one. This is something that comes up in the work that I do weekly, easily, weekly, multiple times. And I have to say for me, This is the hardest part of my parenting, by far, is watching my girls, navigating friendships and supporting them through navigating those friendships. So I've got a tool for you that hopefully will help. It's definitely helped us and it's something that we have introduced at Stardust Squad when we've We've run in person sessions, we've, used this tool and done this method to try and help some girls. And so I would love your feedback if this, helps at your place after you share it with your girls and have the conversation, I'd really love to hear it. So the tool that has worked for us is talking about red and green flags in friendships. it's kind of a bit of a. Buzz topic, like quite, you know, trendy at the moment to talk about red and green flags in relationships, especially around, dating apps and that kind of thing, but definitely the same concept can be used for children and in the case of friendships, definitely. The way that it works is that we talk to the girls about what are some red flag behaviors in friendships and what are some green flag behaviors in friendships. When we ran it in Stardust Squad, what we did was I had a whiteboard there with me, a small whiteboard. And I divided it into two. I actually cut out red and green flags and stuck them around the edge of the whiteboard. And we literally talked to them about what is some green flag behaviors that people do. that make you feel good about being their friend and what are some red flag things that people do. We also talk to them about, if you're around people and there's a lot of green flags, how might that feel in your body? And of course this is going to be different depending on the age of the girl that you're talking to. In the younger ones, you know, we talked about how they might feel uncomfortable or even sick in their tummy if it didn't feel like a good thing, if it was a red flag behavior., Sometimes the older children would talk about how they might feel trusting if it's kind of green flag. They might be able to feel like they can be themselves more. This is all really important language to be teaching them around what a good friend looks like, how to recognize a good friend. and how they can, I guess, find a good friend for them. Another thing that we spoke to about the, with the girls about these flag systems is that there are people that are better friends for us than others. And so, it's not kind of a one size fits all for the girls. You know, you're not going to be friends with everyone. Some people you will hit off with. immediately and you'll have a good relationship with and being their friend will be really easy and sometimes that's not the case and that's really important too. The thing with friendships for girls, and this is what I'm finding more and more in our personal life with me as a parent, but also in the work that I'm doing with girls, especially with the one on one mentoring, is that It's obviously much easier if someone is not kind to you. That's easy. We all know how to navigate that. It's, we avoid them, we don't play with them. If someone is nasty or unkind, or really showing that they are not interested and don't want to be your friend, then that's quite easy to deal with. What is much more complicated for the girls is when it's someone who is. They think is their friend someone they feel that they are friends with yet. They're still having these It's hard days, tricky situations, hard conversations, or they're feeling sad after their interactions with these friends. That's when it gets much more complicated. We seem to see that maybe around kind of seven or eight, that kind of age is when this, things can kind of start between girls when it's, they are friends, but one of them might start saying things like, Oh, you can't play with them. I just want you to play with me. And I'm sure it comes from a good place. I'm sure that they're just so excited by that little friend of theirs that they just want to soak them all up to themselves. But you can see that this is where it starts to build tension and leaves people feeling uncomfortable. And that's kind of what we see at these early years. Then once they get older, I mean, I'm hearing stories of like proper gaslighting, you know, grade five. And A lot of the time, too, it's things that the girls almost can't explain. I'd really encourage you to give your children the space to really talk about what's going on, because there'll be a lot of things that they'll feel really petty about. I'm sure that you yourself have been in a situation, I know that I have, when I've tried to explain how someone has made me feel really uncomfortable. And it's almost like there's nothing really to tell, you know, you feel silly, you feel petty. Oh, it was the way they looked at me. Oh, it was the way that they, the tone of voice that they used. I felt like they were leaving me out, even though there was nothing really to explain that there was. There's a difference between really Delving into the nitty gritty of every friendship and teaching your children to psychoanalyse every second little interaction. That's not what I'm saying. But more so that when they do have a situation where they're confused, they're telling me that, they're my friend, but then I'm left with this uncomfortable, awful feeling, or I'm left feeling like I'm being left out, yet they're saying that they're included me. Those kinds of things give her the space to talk to you about that and help her see that it's not just her imagination, she's not just being silly, and a lot of the time actually they are the beginnings of little red flag behaviors. The reason why this works so well, the red and green flags, is because it separates the behavior from the person. I believe that it's just far too simplistic. It's such a black and white. idea to say to your child, oh, they're not being very nice. Just don't play with them. That's just, that's just too simplistic. And I can rattle off a heap of reasons why it is. You know, I know a lot of children around me who go to really tiny schools and friendship options are very limited, but it also It actually doesn't teach them any relationship skills that they'll be able to use in different contexts throughout their whole life. Whether it's relationships when they're older, work colleagues, you know, extended family, just whether they're playing sport, just all these kinds of things, there's going to be the need for them to develop these relationship skills. And so, It also allows for us to have the opportunity, we're not saying that these children are bad children, but we're showing that perhaps they're doing things that are making you not feel great. It also teaches our children how to have the language around that, and that their feelings are valid, it's okay that they feel like that, how could we address it? You know, I really love hanging out with you, but when you turn your back on me when we're in a group, it makes me feel really uncomfortable and really left out. Teach them how to speak up for themselves, and most of the time the way to do that is by modeling it. Talk to them, play it out, role play with them, give them some ideas of what they could do or what they could say. Pippin Girl is a resource. Please check out Pippin Girl online. Pippin Girl is run by a woman called Emma and she is incredible. She does a lot of speaking at schools and she has incredible resources on her website and her Instagram is amazing. She talks about kind of dealing with these things with a courage meter, you know, so give your child different options if they're not feeling particularly courageous, and they don't feel like they can really use their voice and stand up for themselves, then give them the, uh, a softer option. Maybe say something like I've just got to go to the toilet so they can remove themselves, but there's no confrontation. If they're feeling a bit more courageous, maybe they could try and change the subject in the conversation. Or if they're feeling really courageous, they could just call it out and say, Hey, that's really unkind what you're saying. You're making me feel really uncomfortable, you know, whatever it might be. Give them options. Literally tell them the words that they could try and say. And then when they do, talk to them about how did that go? How did you feel? Do you think that worked? What would you try different next time? While we are social beings, our children don't come into this world with this automatic knowledge. They don't understand this. Some children do more than others, but this is a skill that has to be learned and they need our support with it. The other great thing about red and green flags is. It also models for our children how they can be a good friend. None of us really know what it's, what our children are like at school, when we're not around, or at sport, or in different situations. For all we know, we might have the little ones that are coming on too strong, or, you know, we might have ones who realising kind of what impact it has on others. And so this can be a really good tool for them to kind of reflect as well, on They might say, Oh, you sometimes I do that. Okay, so some people might find that a little bit of a red flag situation. So how could we improve on that? One example is you might have a child who is. wonderfully enthusiastic and might find it really hard to pause enough to let other people speak. And so that's something that we talk a lot about as well when we do the red flags and green flags in Stardust Squad. It's not necessarily just kind of nasty excluding behaviors. We talk a lot about like a really green flag for you might be that they have the same sense of humour as you, that they laugh at all the same jokes as you. A green flag might be that they really listen to you when you have something that you need to share. And if you've got a little one who is so enthusiastic that can't pause to let other people speak, then that might be something that comes up. You might say, oh that's It's really important for some people, you know, they might think that you butting in all the time is a little bit of a red flag. How can we practice that? So this doesn't necessarily have to just be for if your child is having friendship problems. It doesn't necessarily just have to be for all the negative things. It can be used in such a range that's going to help your child learn how they themselves can be a good friend, but also how they can recognize great friend behaviors. And like I said, it keeps it it's much more gray area. It's much more nuanced because. That's in life, that's how relationships are. My favorite thing possibly about this is if we are teaching our children this from an early age in primary school, that when they're getting older and they're in their teens, they're in high school and they're faced with situations, it might be peer pressure or, you know, all the things. That teens are faced with, whether it's kind of social media or. You know, when they start having relationships, when they're older again, I hope that everything that I've learned from the red and green flags, they can transfer to another context and they can recognize what things make them feel. Sick in the tummy, sweaty palms, they understand their body enough to recognize these signals and they understand what a red flag might be for them or a green flag might be and they have some kind of awareness around strategies of how to either get out of that situation. or speak up for themselves. I hope that this has been helpful. So many of you voted on the Instagram poll that you really wanted this episode to be the next one. So I really, really hope this helps. Please let me know if it has. You can send us an email or you can text the podcast hotline. It is at the top of the show notes for this episode. I'd love to hear what you thought about it. If you text Surrit, it stays anonymous. If that makes you feel more brave, or you can hit me up on Instagram, I'd just love to know if this was helpful. Make sure to, that you subscribe and leave a review for the Stardust Squad pod and share it to any other parents that this may be helpful for. Thank you so much. See you in the galaxies. Stardust squad we shine so bright, twinkling in the sky at night. Hand in hand we laugh and play, dreaming big every day. Sparkle high and sparkle low, together we let our magic grow. Girls of strength, girls of light, Stardust squad we take flight. Clap once, clap twice, then spin around. In Stardust squad we're safe and sound, shining strong we lift each other. Sisters of stars like none other.