New School = New Friends for Students and Parents

When I was pregnant with my son an older woman at work told me how happy she was for me. Unlike most people who congratulated me, she didn’t talk about how soft the baby’s skin would be, how good he would smell, or extol the joy of baby cuddles. “I am so excited for you!” she said. “Now that you are becoming a mom, you will be making the best friends of your life.” 

She was right. Once I became a parent and my son started daycare, the parents of my son’s classmates and friends soon became close friends. Even as our children moved out of daycare and into new preschools and elementary schools, we all remained close. 

Many parents create these kinds of friends when their children are young and can’t be simply dropped off at practice or walk home from school. You sit on the sidelines at little league or you gather at a picnic table next to the playground and you get to know each other. You share stories, ask each other for advice, and build trust. 

By the time your child is getting ready to move to high school they are much more independent and you are (hopefully) not sitting in the stands as they practice. As such, you are not around other parents as much as you were when they were young. Your address book is already pretty filled with friends and meeting and befriending more people at this stage might not feel that important. But it is.  

As your child moves into high school, their world begins to expand quite a bit. This is one of the great joys of high school for students: bigger school, more activities, more opportunity to make new friends. As a high school principal, one of the pieces of advice I would give every year at our new parent orientation night was that as your child makes new friends you need to get to know their parents. 

We want our teens to grow in independence, but we can’t yet give up monitoring. And one easy form of monitoring is to know your teen’s friends AND their parents. According to the CDC, “Research shows that teens whose parents use effective monitoring practices are less likely to make poor decisions, such as having sex at an early age, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, being physically aggressive, or skipping school.” (For a great informational pamphlet from the CDC about why and how to monitor your teen click here.) 

Your teen might not like it when you say they cannot spend the night at Jimmy’s house until you meet his parents, and actually meeting those parents will take time that you might not feel you have, but you should do it anyway. Knowing that you are on the same wavelength as the parents supervising your child will give you peace of mind and help assure that your child will be less likely to end up in a situation where they have opportunities to make choices that could have negative consequences for them. 

When you do meet the parents of your teen’s new friend, don’t interrogate them, but do discuss the things that will help ensure that you are comfortable allowing your child to spend time at their new friend’s house, such as:

• Will they be supervised while at your home? 

This does not mean that you want or expect eyes on your teen at all times, but you should know if the parents will actually be in the home while your child is there. A parent in the house can limit your teen’s access to alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana and inappropriate media. 

• Is alcohol in the home? Do you allow your child to drink alcohol in your home?

Teens want to experiment. It is completely natural. Alcohol is one those things they are often most interested in experimenting with. Some parents see a benefit to allowing their teens to partake in alcohol under supervision; others do not. Know how the other parents feel about this issue so that you can be on the same page.  

• Does anyone in your home use marijuana? Does marijuana use happen in front of your child?  

Recreational marijuana is legal in the state of California and there are many adults, including some parents, who regularly use marijuana. Just like alcohol, be sure you are on the same page as other parents so that your child is not exposed to something you would prefer they were not exposed to. 

• Does anyone in your home smoke cigarettes? If yes, do they smoke inside the home?

Besides limiting your teen’s access to cigarettes, you may also have health concerns if someone in the household smokes inside the home.

• Are there firearms in the home? If yes, are they appropriately locked and stored? Does their child know how to access the firearms? 

You may have firearms in your own home (hopefully safely locked and stored), but too often we see news stories about children who have accidentally killed or injured themselves, a sibling or a friend after coming upon an improperly stored firearm. If the household does have firearms, decide if you are comfortable with your teen going there and have a talk with your teen about firearm safety. 

It can be awkward to have these conversations, but they can be made less so if you offer up this information about your own household as a starting point. 

The teen years are defined by a desire to assert independence and experiment; we all did it and it is a natural and necessary part of growing up!  If you have been clear with your teen about what your expectations are, they are less likely to make choices that would not meet those expectations. And if we as parents can help them stay out of situations where they may be pressured to make choices that could have negative consequences, then we have helped them. So go ahead, make some new friends while your teen does and help keep them safe.