By Caroline Maguire, M.Ed. PCC It’s a parent’s worst nightmare when your kid comes home from camp or school and says, “Why can’t I make friends?” As much as we wish we had the magic answer to soothe their pain, when your son or daughter tells you they have no friends, it hurts everyone. As […]
My Child Can’t Make Friends & Keep Them – Is Something Wrong? Read More »
Making friends is an essential part of growing up. It gives kids the opportunity to develop social skills, empathy, and a sense of community. Friendships also contribute significantly to a child’s emotional well-being and their self confidence. However, for children struggling with anxiety, the process of forming new friendships can be fraught with challenges. This
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Does loneliness and fear of rejection cause adults and teenagers with ADHD to fall into people pleasing? Sadly, often the answer is yes. For many of us with ADHD, years of rejection, friendship struggles and generally feeling lonely or misunderstood often impacts how we approach making new friends. We worry about things like: Should I
Is Your Fear Of Not Having Friends Causing You To Be More Of A People Pleaser? Read More »
Alex*, a high school junior, has given up on making friends. “School is stressful enough”, she says. Instead of participating in after-school clubs and activities, she spends the evenings with her headphones on, listening to music while gaming or doing homework. This love-hate relationship with being social started early. In the past, when she’d make
Help Your Kid Reframe Their Love-Hate Relationship with Being Social Read More »
As a parent, watching your ADHD kid from the sidelines, you know all-too-well how often your child is rejected, socially awkward and challenging with their friends. ADHD and friendships have a dicey relationship at best and if your kid is the one on the playground who is turned away from, or not invited over to
ADHD & Friendships… Why It’s So Hard For Some Kids To Make Life-Long Friends Read More »
For some people with ADHD, being social fills up their battery. Yet, for others, it drains them of their energy. But the truth is that for almost everyone, reading social cues, trying to pay attention to conversations, coping with sensory bombardment and managing situations that are taxing on your brain are exhausting. When someone wants
When trying to figuring out how to make friends as a teenager or join a group, more often than not, teens experience genuine social anxiety and fear. Some teens have a long history of rejection and social anxiety. They may feel awkward and not confident in their own skin. As they approach friendships and relationships,
How To Make Friends as a Teenager When You’re Shy & Insecure Read More »
Banning friends and forbidding your ADHD teen from seeing people that you don’t like won’t work. Having a focused, collaborative conversation about your teen’s thoughts on friendship will. Q: “My teenager is having a rocky time with friendships. Lately, she is choosing questionable friends. These ‘friends’ are not treating her well, and, because of their influence,
Should I Ban My Teen From Seeing “Bad” Friends? Read More »
One of my clients this week told me that social life is like a castle. The walls are just too high and too thick to climb and you cannot get in unless someone lets the drawbridge down. Insurmountable Social World As a result, so many kids feel this way. They do not know what to
A Social Life Castle with Thick Walls Read More »
