Katya Karpenko in English → Choose a Parenting Course for Your Teen's Situation → Supporting Your Teen Through Friendship Difficulties
Supporting Your Teen Through Friendship Difficulties
In short
Yes, and this one is for the parent, not the teen. In three recorded lessons with workbooks and a communication skills guide you learn which skills friendship grows from, such as joining a conversation, saying no and telling friendship from being used, and how to pass them on at home. If bullying with threats is happening now, the school and the adults act first.
Contents
- Why does "I have no friends" hurt a teenager so much?
- Trouble meeting people, keeping friends, or handling conflict?
- Why didn't a new school fix it?
- What about a teen who disappears online?
- How do I ask about friends at 10–12, 13–14 and 15+?
- What's in the course?
- Who is it for, and when is it the wrong tool?
- Lessons, access and enrolment
- When does a friendship problem need a specialist's help?
Why does "I have no friends" hurt a teenager so much?
For a teenager, friends their own age matter enormously. Among peers they find out who they are and what they're worth. So "I have no friends" doesn't sound to them like an everyday nuisance. It sounds like a verdict on themselves.
The parent, meanwhile, feels helpless. You can't hand out friends from a list. What you can do is teach the skills friendship grows from: how to approach someone, how to refuse, how not to dissolve in a group and not to tower over it either.
At this age friends matter more than family, and that isn't a slight against you. It's the norm. A teenager is looking for an answer to "who am I among my own", and that answer can't be found at home. Hence the price they're ready to pay for a place in a group: fit in, keep quiet, give away what's theirs.
Trouble meeting people, keeping friends, or handling conflict?
A parent sees only the tip: there are no friends, or the friends are the wrong ones. Underneath there are usually concrete things. Your teen doesn't know how to enter a conversation. Doesn't know how to say no. Can't tell friendship from being used. These are skills, and skills can be built.
Which of these do you see?
- Your child has no friends and stopped looking long ago.
- They either bend to everyone or look down on everyone.
- They've disappeared online and say live contact isn't needed.
- The class doesn't accept them, and even a new school didn't help.
- Friends use them, and they don't seem to notice.
- You've moved, and they have to break into a new class again.
"Friends use him and he doesn't notice" is a common one. He notices. He's afraid to test the friendship with a refusal, because what if he refuses and ends up alone? While loneliness is scarier than humiliation, a teenager will keep paying. So first loneliness has to become bearable, and only then do we teach "no".
Why didn't a new school fix it?
If the story repeats in a new place, the class isn't the problem. A child brings a role along: the victim, the clown, the invisible one. The role has to be worked on separately, otherwise it moves to the next school too.
That isn't a reason to blame anyone. A role is something a child picked up to survive somewhere. It can be put down, but rarely on their own. Have you noticed the same role at home, with cousins, on holiday?
What about a teen who disappears online?
Online is easier. There's a pause before you answer, you can leave, you can be someone else. It isn't an illness, it's a choice of less pain. Switching off the internet is useless. What helps is making live contact bearable again, and that's what the course works on, without bans and without a war.
If your 14-year-old already says nobody wants to be friends with them, my article on a 14-year-old with no friends starts from that exact scene.
How do I ask about friends at 10–12, 13–14 and 15+?
Don't push for names. Ask about events instead of people: where they went, what they watched, what was funny. Names appear on their own once your teen stops expecting a verdict on their friends.
At 10–12 friendship still grows around doing things together: the same club, the same bus, the same game. Ask what they did, who joined in, what went wrong. Details are easy at this age, conclusions aren't.
At 13–14 belonging takes centre stage, and so does the fear of ending up outside the group. Questions about a particular friend get dodged. Talk about a scene from the class instead, and let your teen be the judge of it.
From 15 on, friends are chosen rather than given by the class, and there may be fewer of them. That's fine. Ask your teen's opinion as you would an adult's, and listen to how they describe the people they trust.
What's in the course?
- Three recorded video lessons.
- A workbook with tasks for each lesson.
- Lecture notes.
- A guide to communication skills.
- A worksheet on limiting beliefs.
- The exercise "My values".
- A reading list on the topic.
You'll understand which skills communication is made of and how to pass them on. You'll learn to help your teen find their own people rather than random ones, and to protect them from manipulation and dubious company. There's a part on what to do if you don't like your child's friends, an order of actions if your child becomes a target of bullying, and how to bring a teen back from online to live contact.
Who is it for, and when is it the wrong tool?
It's for the parent of a teenager who is lonely, bends to everyone or hides behind a screen. The parent watches the lessons. Some tasks are built so that you do them together with your child, if they agree. It isn't a social skills class for your teen, and it won't switch on instead of a conversation with you.
If bullying with threats or physical violence is happening right now, that's not a course. That's the school, the other family and, if needed, the authorities. And if you're waiting for a list of phrases after which friends appear, there are no such phrases.
When the friendship trouble comes with outbursts at home, add the course on teen emotions. When school has stalled too, look at the motivation course.
Lessons, access and enrolment
Three lessons and their tasks, recorded, with access open for three months. Your pace, your phone, no timetable. You can return to a lesson before a new school year or after a hard weekend.
The lessons are in Russian. You enrol on the Russian page of the course, where the form also takes payment. All four courses are side by side on the course overview, and if you're weighing a deck of question cards instead, read cards or a course.
When does a friendship problem need a specialist's help?
See a specialist if your teen has gone quiet not only with you: friends, messages and usual company have disappeared, and this has lasted more than a month. Another sign is loneliness together with changed sleep and appetite and a complete loss of interest in what they used to enjoy.
In active bullying an adult is always needed. Talk to the school, not to the other child. If your child is in danger right now, call your local emergency number.
Questions parents ask
My teen says they don't need anyone. Is that true?
Almost never. Usually it's protection: if I don't need anyone, it doesn't hurt that nobody picks me. Behind the phrase there is more often a bad experience than an introvert's character.
Should I step in when there is trouble in my teen's class?
Directly, rarely. In bullying an adult is needed, and the conversation is with the school, not with the other child. In ordinary quarrels it's better to let your teen handle it and back them up from behind.
What if I don't like my teen's friends?
Don't forbid them. A ban makes the group more valuable and turns you into the opponent. Talk about behaviour: what exactly happens and how your teen feels in it.
My teen is shy. Can a course for me really help?
Yes, because what changes is how relationships are discussed at home. "It's your own fault" and "just ignore them" stop being said, and for a shy child that's the first thing that works.
Is this a social skills class for my teenager?
No. The parent watches the course. Some tasks are designed for you to do together with your child, if they agree.
How long does it take, and how do I ask if it suits us?
Three recorded lessons with tasks, access open for three months, at your pace. The lessons are in Russian; to ask about your situation first, use the Telegram button on this page.
Katya Karpenko
I work with the family as a system: what happens with a teenager is almost always tied to how talking works at home, so change starts with the adult. I run closed online groups for teenagers and a separate group for parents, and I write books for teens and their parents. I'm a mother of two teenagers myself.