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00:00:08.720Hey everybody, welcome back.
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00:00:13.039This is an exciting month because I have a topic that I'm very excited to bring up with Dr.
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00:00:13.919Beth and talk about.
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00:00:15.599So we're going to jump right in.
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00:00:18.480Before we get to the word this month, we're going to introduce ourselves.
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00:00:19.839My name is Leslie Bolser.
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00:00:22.559I am the creative director for Core Essential Values.
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00:00:31.839We provide resources and materials for schools and communities to help kids and families live out these words that we talk about every month throughout their schools and throughout their communities.
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00:00:34.399And I'm joined, as always, by my friend, Dr.
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00:00:35.520Beth Tremell.
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00:00:36.880Go ahead and introduce yourself.
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00:00:38.399Hey there, listener.
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00:00:39.600I'm glad you're here.
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00:00:40.399I am Dr.
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00:00:43.840Beth Tremell and I am a psychologist.
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00:00:50.560I'm a professor of psychology at Indiana University East, which is where I also am the director of the Master's in Mental Health Counseling program.
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00:00:54.000So I train graduate students, but my focus is to make words matter for good.
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00:00:55.759It's why we are such good friends.
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00:01:00.240It's why I love Core Essentials because we focus on one word.
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00:01:09.840And I think sometimes as parents, even as a quote, parenting expert, which I don't even know what that means, you know, I think I have four kids of my own.
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00:01:16.319And I think sometimes it's really helpful just to have one focus for the month to kind of be intentional with.
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00:01:19.359So I love this and I'm excited about this word today, too.
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00:01:19.840Yeah.
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00:01:21.680So we're talking about friendship.
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00:01:28.719And this word, there's so much to think about and talk about when we are exploring the idea of parenting around friendship.
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00:01:30.799And we've talked about this several times.
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00:01:46.799And so I think for those of you who are new joining us, if you want to hear more about, you know, just specific things about maybe the age range of your child and some developmental things in terms of helping them be good friends at those age levels, I would encourage you to go back through our archives and find those.
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00:01:49.519They're labeled with friendships, so they're pretty easy to spot.
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00:01:52.400Um, but today I thought we could change it up just a little bit.
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00:02:08.159We've done this sometimes before, but I would love to talk about adult friendships because I think it's really important as we are helping our young people become good friends and have good friends and know who to trust and um how to act around those you trust.
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00:02:12.400I think it's really important to have good examples of adult friendship.
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00:02:14.560So what say you, Dr.
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00:02:15.039Beth?
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00:02:16.319It's funny.
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00:02:18.000Yeah, so I love this.
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00:02:26.159And if you've heard any of the other podcasts where we're together, you know how much I talk about modeling.
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00:02:37.120We can tell kids over and over what to do, but if we're saying something and what we're doing is something different, it is very confusing, yeah, both for us and them.
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00:02:47.360So I love the idea of talking about friendships for grown-ups because we are, as grown-ups, we are the model for everything for our kids, you know?
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00:03:00.240So when I talk with couples, I say you are the model of relationships that your kid is either going to want to do also to mimic in their own relationship, or they're gonna want to do the opposite, one way or the other, right?
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00:03:09.039I think the real challenge for friendships in grown-ups is that most of our kids don't get us get to see us around our friends.
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00:03:10.000Right, right.
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00:03:20.960Unless we're having, like, for example, families over or family cookouts or family dinners where you're inviting the whole family over and your kids get to watch you around other grown-ups.
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00:03:32.879There's a couple of things that I think about right away when we talk about friendships from a parenting perspective, about our own friendships, is one, how are you prioritizing your own friendships?
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00:03:44.159Because you can't talk to your kid about why friendship matters and why you want them to have strong positive friends, and then you're not prioritizing your own friendships.
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00:03:44.560Correct.
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00:03:50.159That's yeah, that's priority number one, is you've got to make sure that you are scheduling that time.
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00:03:56.479But then it's also to what I was just mentioning like, how are your kids seeing you in friendships?
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00:04:03.360Like, are they are they seeing that you give a lot more in this friendship than you're receiving?
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00:04:07.039Do they see the conflict that you might have with a friend?
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00:04:12.240Do they see how your feelings were hurt by your friend?
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00:04:13.840Like they don't see those things.
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00:04:20.720So, do you recommend then that we name those and and just like describe those or discuss those with our kids?
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00:04:26.480How do we give them a lens into that part of our adult friendships that's healthy and appropriate?
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00:04:30.800Yeah, I mean, I think that that's the the real question is what is healthy and appropriate?
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00:04:36.879So, my best, you know, my best scenario would be to let them see it in action, right?
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00:04:51.040And so you are inviting folks somewhere, and it doesn't have to be you invite them to your house, but it might be that you invite them to go somewhere together, or kids have to see like some version of the relationship.
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00:04:51.439Yeah.
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00:04:59.600But I think from there, there are two opportunities for us to kind of teach our kids about how we approach friendship.
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00:05:05.920And one of them is to explicitly talk about things that are going on, even if they're not happening to your child.
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00:05:17.040This would be kind of share a piece of your childhood, you share a piece of your friendship right now, you share your struggles or your joy, your favorite things that you used to do with friends.
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00:05:20.800You can talk about it like when they're not going through that issue.
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00:05:29.279Or if your child is going through an issue with friends, then you can share about ways that you worked through it.
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00:05:34.319And you can kind of share parts of that when they're going through the problem.
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00:05:40.720Um, but sometimes waiting for them to have the problem is not, is not ideal.
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00:05:46.560Um, because then you're not really preparing them perhaps for things that you could otherwise have prepared them for.
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00:05:48.079Yeah, that's really great.
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00:05:59.279So I have one more question, and that is this is gonna hit some people more than others because I think just personality-wise, making friends is easier for some people than it is for other people.
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00:05:59.680Yeah.
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00:06:06.959And I think especially as your kids get older, and maybe the number of activities that they participate in winds down.
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00:06:09.680Um, because that's a really natural way to meet people, right?
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00:06:10.959Is through your kids' activities.
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00:06:20.480But as those things kind of wind down, how have you seen, how have you personally, how do you know what are some good tips for adults to make friends?
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00:06:21.040Yeah.
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00:06:24.560I mean, I think that that is a natural connection, right?
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00:06:33.199When your kids are in activities or they're in a class with other kids, you kind of naturally become connected to other people.
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00:06:41.600And whether that connection turns into a friendship or not, you know, really comes down to how much you want to invest and how much the other person invests in you.
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00:06:50.079So I think it's a great opportunity to pause to reflect to say, who are the people that are naturally in my life?
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00:06:53.920And how do I want to invest in those relationships?
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00:06:59.920Now I often hear people who say, Hey Beth, listen, that ship has sailed, you know.
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00:07:00.319Right.
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00:07:00.879I'm too old.
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00:07:01.439I'm too old.
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00:07:01.680Yeah.
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00:07:02.319Exactly.
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00:07:10.000I'm too old for new friends, I'm too old to, you know, have to deal with the drama of I'm anxious, I don't want to meet new people.
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00:07:10.399Yeah.
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00:07:14.399And I I think that's that's okay to some extent.
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00:07:22.160It becomes a situation that perhaps you want to reflect on when you are encouraging your child to try something new.
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00:07:28.720For example, you're at the dinner table and they say, I don't like rice.
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00:07:31.839And you're like, Well, you've never had rice, you need to try it.
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00:07:40.959And the bubble over their head, perhaps if they were me, they might say, Well, maybe you should try meeting new people.
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00:07:43.680Maybe you should try putting yourself out there, right?
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00:07:53.360So it's like the the philosophies that we have for our kids are parenting philosophies around we want them to have healthy relationships, we want them to try new things.
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00:08:00.399I just sometimes think we might need to pause to challenge that and think about how we're doing that in our own lives.
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00:08:03.199Yeah, I think that's really great advice.
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00:08:08.639You know, I I have had a challenging year this year in ways that I wasn't anticipating.
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00:08:16.319And one of the things that really helped me was, you know, I'm not a great inviter, um, but I decided this year I was gonna say yes.
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00:08:29.759And so even if it was an event I was not super interested in, even if it wasn't an activity that I didn't really care about, I decided I was gonna say yes just for the experience of being around the people and creating new connections and making new friends.
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00:08:40.159And I follow you on social media and I know that you are an inviter and you create spaces, whether it's through working out or crafting or gathering in ways with other people.
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00:08:48.720Um, so I think you can be that initiator, or you can be the person who just despite wanting to stay home under the blankets, says yes.
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00:08:49.440Yeah.
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00:08:56.000I mean, I love that, and I am so proud of you because I know that saying yes is really scary, right?
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00:08:57.120It's hard, yeah, yeah.
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00:09:00.960It's really scary and it's more convenient and easy, you know, to just stay at home.
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00:09:07.440And I think about folks who might be listening who feel perhaps lonely in friendships.
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00:09:08.480Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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00:09:13.039And feel like, okay, well, I don't have kids that are engaged in anything.
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00:09:16.960I don't really have a real way to connect with anyone.
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00:09:20.480I might encourage you to think of one small way.
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00:09:28.080So in all of our communities, we have um, you know, maybe there's a public library that has community events going on.
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00:09:41.519Maybe there's a YMCA where you can do a group exercise class or you can join a club of some sort and I volunteer somewhere to give of your yeah, yeah, exactly.
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00:09:42.159That's right.
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00:09:48.480Like I think, you know, reaching out to the school to ask them if they have any needs that you could help fulfill.
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00:10:00.879I think my encouragement for you if you're lonely and you're feeling like I'm really struggling with this issue with friends, it might feel really overwhelming because you're feeling isolated or lonely.
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00:10:18.960It might feel overwhelming to say yes to different invitations, but it will at least ease some of the loneliness to be around other people that might share common interests, or you might be able to find somebody who you can relate to that might help you feel less lonely.
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00:10:35.039But if you're really struggling with friendships, this would be a very appropriate time to seek support of a therapist or reach out to your doctor and say, I know this doesn't feel like a major crisis, but it is an area of my life that I want to be better at.
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00:10:37.519And so if anything should be really helpful, yeah.
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00:10:38.960Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic.
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00:10:39.759That's great advice.
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00:10:41.360Well, I'm really glad we had this talk.
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00:10:43.279I hope this was helpful for some other people too.
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00:10:46.960I think this was um something that as grown-ups we don't talk that much about.
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00:10:51.039Yes, I think this topic is one that we just don't talk enough about.
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00:10:54.559And so I'm grateful that we also got to have this conversation.
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00:10:58.000And yeah, next month we'll have another word for you.
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00:11:02.879And if you um enjoyed this, feel free to share it, maybe with a friend.
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00:11:07.039Tune in next month for another word and another focus, and we'll see you then.
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00:11:21.279Ciao, I think.
