Behaviour

How can Parents Empower Girls to Resolve their Friendship Issues for Themselves?

What to say, and what to leave unsaid, when a girl comes home in tears about a falling-out with her friends.

  • 1 hour 2 minutes
  • Recorded webinar
  • Certificate

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What you'll learn

  • Listen to her friendship worries without judging, fixing or lecturing
  • Look past the story she tells to the feeling underneath it
  • Spot the well-meant replies that make girls stop talking to you
  • Recognise normal friendship turbulence that doesn't need adults to step in
  • Choose moments to talk, like a car journey, when she's more likely to open up

About this course

She's upset, the story involves five names and a matching bag, and you can't work out who did what. Should you ring the school? Or the other girl's mum? Ask girls what their parents say at moments like this, and the replies that hurt most are usually the ones trying hardest to fix it.

You'll learn what helps instead: why having one reliable friend matters so much to a girl, why the story she tells rarely matches what happened, and how to listen for the feeling underneath rather than the facts.

There's a long list of well-meant replies girls say make things worse (count how many you've used), and simple phrases that work better, like "That sounds really tough. How did it make you feel?" The ideas come from a former headteacher who founded the Girls on Board approach and has two daughters of his own.

Recording

Open in order

  1. Webinar Playback

    50 min
  2. Q&A

    13 min