She runs up the stairs to her bedroom and slams the door. You can hear her on the other side of the door sobbing. Your daughter received the dreaded break-up text, but this wasn’t from a romantic interest. It was from a close friend.
Friendships come and go, but it’s challenging when your daughter’s close friendship comes to an abrupt end, particularly when it’s unexpected.
Ending a friendship isn’t easy, and it’s actually commendable when a girl is upfront and ends a friendship respectfully and kindly. Unfortunately, though, most girls don’t have the skills to break up with someone in a respectful and compassionate way. So, it’s often done through an abrupt text. Either no explanation or a short one. “I don’t like hanging out with you anymore,” or “I find you annoying.” And then the final blow happens…a full-on block on all social media platforms.
So as a parent, how do you deal with this? How do you support your daughter through it?
You might be tempted to hop on the phone and call the other girl’s mom. You want answers. Your daughter wants answers. Resist the urge to make the phone call. This isn’t your friendship to navigate.
You might be tempted to read through all of your daughter’s texts to get to the bottom of it. Don’t do this unless your daughter explicitly agrees to this. Also, it’s not very healthy for you. It drops you right in the big middle of the drama.
You might be tempted to bad mouth the other girl, because you can’t understand why should she would hurt your daughter like that. Avoid doing this. This girl was your daughter’s friend a short time ago. And who knows, they may become friends again in the future.
We’ve gone over the things to avoid doing. Now let’s talk about what you can do and what your daughter can do to process this devastating break-up.
- Give her space to feel the feels. Let her cry it out, scream it out, pout it out. Let her feel the emotions before asking a lot of questions or trying to fix it.
- Let her know that you are there for her if she wants to talk but don’t force it.
- Ask her “Is there anything I can do for you right now?”.
- Focus on your daughter and the support she needs versus trying to get to the bottom of it.
When your daughter is ready, and if she wants guidance from you, here are two suggestions you can pass along to her:
- Suggest that she write a letter to her former friend. This is for your daughter’s eyes only. She can include how she feels about the break-up, what she is going to miss most about their friendship, her favorite memory. And encourage her to conclude it with “What I wish for you is…”. What I wish for me is…”
- Ask her if she would like to try to reach out to her friend to perhaps get some closure. If she says “yes”, the two of you can brainstorm about how she would do it (written letter, text, home visit) and what she would say.
The loss of a friendship is heart-breaking, but she can hang onto the great memories and honor their friendship while it lasted. She can also be assured that there are future friends out there waiting for her.
You got this!
With Heart,
Coach Sheri
