Why You Shouldn't Let Your Young Kids Choose Their Own Friends
Inclusivity is a conscious decision.
If you’ve ever wished for a world where your kid wasn’t excluded, you get to be part of making that world a reality. Inclusivity is a conscious decision that we make every day.
Tomorrow we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and I’m thinking about how our kids learn bias, and why it takes a conscious effort to interrupt it. As parents of neurodivergent kids, I’m sure you think about these things too, and I can’t wait to hear what you have to say after reading this.
This reframe will help create the inclusive future that all our kids deserve.
“Let your kids choose their own friends.”
Who can argue with that? It sounds so reasonable, logical, and benign. But I actually think it is really bad advice.
It goes along with rationalizations like:
“My kindergartener just happens to like these kids, so that’s who they invited to the party.” (Shrugs and ignores the fact that those friends all look just like their kid.)
I never had a great comeback to this, because on the surface it seemed respectful. I want my kid to be able to make choices, and I want to believe that kids are unbiased.
Of course we are all born without prejudice!
But very young, our kids start to borrow our unconscious thoughts and feelings. It doesn’t mean we’re bad or our kids are bad. We pass on the code that was passed to us. We don’t even know we’re doing it. As mammals, we gravitate towards sameness, because sameness is safe. Our nervous system acts fast. Its job is to detect threats in the blink of an eye to keep us alive. We categorize, sort, and develop opinions based on appearances. As we’ve evolved, it has been a reliable way to keep us safe.
It’s called implicit bias.
But the world has changed, and we continue to evolve as a species.
We can interrupt those patterns. We have a choice. Inclusivity is a conscious decision.
Throughout our history, hierarchies have developed that put some people over others based on appearance, and terrible things have been done to maintain those hierarchies. Do we want to continue to participate in that? Do we want to do things the old way, or do we want to disown those hierarchies and build a more inclusive future for our kids?
We can decide to interrupt our own implicit biases, and then we can teach our kids to notice theirs. This conscious decision may not be easy, but it is liberatory.
This reminds me of a NY Times Op-Ed by Topher Sanders:
“I heard it, but I wasn’t quite sure that’s what I heard.
“Not you, you’re black,” said the girl, reaching out to touch my son. “You’re not white. Only white people can play.”
I knew a moment like this would happen eventually. I just didn’t think it would happen at age 5 on the playground.
And what of the little girl? She, too, is a casualty in this — infected by racism before she can even spell the word.
It would be easy to dismiss the whole exchange as kids being kids. She’s young enough that she hasn’t developed the filters to catch what she’s being taught at home. There’s a direct line from what she’s learning to her mouth…
Systemic racism apparently begins at the playground.
-Topher Sanders, ‘Only White People,’ Said the Little Girl
You Can and Should Step in and Educate Your Kids
We guide our children’s decisions all the time. We don’t say “My kid only likes ice cream, so that’s what they’re having for dinner. It’s their choice!” We can steer our kids to make conscious choices in their friendships, just like in their eating habits.
Don’t wait until something embarrassing happens on the playground to think about your values. Talk about inclusion and empathy with your children all the time. You can role play and give them examples based on real life, like the one in the article above.
If your kid declares that they don’t play with other children based on their appearance or their ability, it does not mean they’re bad. It definitely doesn’t mean you should shut them up or shame them. They are not the only kid to ever make this mistake. In fact they are surrounded by examples of bias every day. It’s a learning opportunity.
Remember, our nervous systems need conscious retraining.
A few things we can try instead of letting our kids unconsciously play out the biases they’ve inherited:
Educate yourself on anti-racism, anti-ableism, and other biases.
Talk with your child about embracing differences in ourselves and others. It’s never too early to model inclusion and acceptance.
Assess your own friend group to see what you are modeling for your child. They can see who you hang out with.
If another parent speaks up for their child, please understand that they have a right to do that. Thank them rather than jumping to defensiveness.
Your children will parrot what has been modeled to them. Calmly correct misinformation, just like you would with anything else they are learning about.
When asking who to invite to a party, do some digging. Ask about the kids your child may have forgotten. Better yet, invite the whole class!
Ask about all the kids in class, on the block, etc., and get curious when they say things that seem misaligned with your values. Keep asking, non-judgmentally, until you really understand. Then, you can offer a new perspective.
Keep the communication open. This is not a one-time chat.
Inclusivity is a a conscious decision, and a learned value.
We are teaching our kids how we feel about differences either consciously or unconsciously. It starts with who we invite to our homes and birthday parties.
I don’t have all the answers, far from it. And I don’t have a great conclusion to this post. Just like we can learn from Dr. King, nonviolent resistance, and social justice movements all year long, I hope we can keep this conversation going.
Your reflective and respectful comments are welcome!
I think sometimes the issue is conflicting access needs though.
So speaking as an autistic adult, I’ve learnt the hard way that I can’t always be really great friends with some other ND people. Our profiles are all ‘spiky’ - and sometimes those ‘spikes’ poke each other. So just as an example, last minute changes of plan absolutely _throw_ me and can send me spiralling. Whereas another autist might have time blindness and turn up really late, or might be a PDAer who cancels half an hour before they’re due to arrive.
We’re all autistic - but our needs conflict. There might be ways around this, and there might not. But as I’m an adult, no one is telling me I ought to be a friend to them or invite them into my home, or to my birthday party (well, that’s theoretical as I don’t celebrate my birthday with a party).
And it’s similar with ND kids. There are always conflicting access needs within the ND community and I think it’s not as simple as saying we should just be open all the time. Some ND kids trigger each other and especially as for many of our ND kiddos the home is their ‘safe space’, I don’t think we should necessarily invite everyone around - there are often ways around it, for example, my autistic youngest sees her very boisterous ADHD friend in the park, as in the (small - don’t forget, many of us, especially those of us low income families, often have tiny living spaces) house he’s just too much for her and she melts down. But sometimes friendships don’t work for our kiddos because of those conflicting needs, and I do think as parents, part of our job is teaching our ND kids how to advocate for themselves and sometimes that might include boundaries over who comes to the house.
It’s a tough one isn’t it. I’ve also noticed that it’s usually on the more quiet, routine-craving neurodivergent children to be accepting of their louder, more spirited neurodivergent peers - and, not always, but more often than not, that tends to fall down gendered lines, which also doesn’t seem right. Like, I don’t think it’s necessarily ableist for an autistic girl to say ‘actually that boy doesn’t respect my personal space - it’s not his fault, but I don’t want him in my home, my safe space’.
I mean, as an adult autist these things are a struggle for me, too, but at least I get to set my own boundaries if you get me.