Remember that college friend who you swore you’d stay close to forever?

The guy you knew you could always call on at 2 a.m. if you were stranded somewhere and he’d take care of you? And then one day you found yourself stranded at the Tampa airport at 2 a.m. with your baby. You did call him and not only did he pick you up but he offered you a joint and wanted to stay up till dawn catching up on old time. You were like “Dude, those days are over. I have to get my toddler settled and then pass out so I can be human when she wakes up at 6.”

OK, maybe that exact thing only happened to me. But we’ve all had awkward moments with friends as we grow and change and some of our friends just … don’t. Or they grow in different directions. Your friend who was taking the bar exam while you were doing childbirth classes might not have as much in common with you now as she did when you were both English majors at Swarthmore.

It’s not just the stoners and high-powered lawyers you’re growing apart from. Turns out, there are a few key points in life when many of us ditch our friends. Becoming a parent is one of them. Continue reading »

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When my girl was younger, she and my husband spent a lot of time playing Barbies together.  I thought it was sweet that he did this and felt she was a lucky girl to have such a devoted papa.  My mother-in-law, however, felt differently.  After observing several hours of Barbie-playing during one of her visits, she warned my husband that he was crossing the line from parent to friend and this was not a good thing.

I still think playing Barbies with her was a wonderful bonding experience for both of them, but I do get what she was worrying about. We all want to have close relationships with our children, but there is such a thing as too close.  And according to child and adolescent psychologist Dr. Jennifer Hartstein, parents who treat their kids as equals and buddy around with them as if they were pals are swimming in “dangerous waters.” Continue reading »

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We all want our kids to have lots of nice friends at school.   Having buddies in the classroom can take some of the sting out of dragging out of bed every morning to face a world of rules, schedules and tests.  For a kid, having a laugh and connecting with friends at school can act as a much-needed social release valve amid the pressures inherent in all that learning.

But just as school friends can help a student feel happier in the classroom, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, say there might also be an academic benefit to such relationships. Continue reading »

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“The New York Times” reports on new research which shows that enemies can help children grow emotionally.

“Friendships provide a context in which children develop, but of course so do negative peer relations,” Maurissa Abecassis, a psychologist at Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire told The Times. “We should expect that both types of relationships, as different as they are, present opportunities for growth.”

But when is an enemy not an “opportunity for growth” but a nasty bully? Schools are increasingly vigilant against bullying after two teenage girls who were bullied committed suicide earlier this year. Is the theoretical upside of an antagonistic relationship worth the potential risks? Continue reading »

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We’ve had a lot of coverage about the very real dangers of bullying recently. Massachusetts has passed anti-bullying legislation in the wake of teen suicides, and schools all over the country are pushing for tougher measures to get kids to play nice with each other.

But what about affectionate teasing? The innocuous, playful taunting that goes on between family members, or a teenagers flirting? That’s a harmless game, right?

Research says no, Gretchen Rubin points out on the Happiness Project. While people teasing their friends and loved ones often feel affectionate and playful towards them, the people being teased tend to see the behavior as “malicious and annoying”.

Continue reading »

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The next time a teacher in the Granite School District in Salt Lake City receives a Facebook friend request from a student, he or she might do well to click “Ignore.”  In an attempt to avoid some of the issues that have popped up elsewhere when students and teachers connect via social networking sites, school officials have proposed a ban on any such online intermingling. Continue reading »

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As the youngest of three kids, I learned a lot about the ways of the world from my older siblings.  My bother was a risk-taker who, among other things, introduced me to the thrill of sneaking out of my bedroom window in the middle of the night.  My sister, cautious by nature, urged me to consider the consequences of that very same behavior.

I ended up somewhere in the middle – a wild child who lived in fear of getting caught.  According to researchers, the apparent influence my siblings had on my behavior is not uncommon.  And this sibling effect, they say, is something parents would do well to heed.  Continue reading »

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