When Your ADHD Teen Has Questionable Friends
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, she seems to be heading in a troubling direction. I don’t like these kids, and I am worried. Do I ban the friendships?”
A: You have hit on one of the most heartbreaking experiences as a parent raising a kid with attention deficit disorder (ADHD or ADD). Watching your child make bad choices, and feeling that she is not being treated well, is painful. It’s not easy at this age. Right now your daughter’s peer group is the biggest factor influencing her choices and behavior.
You asked if you should interfere. I’d take a less direct approach. Help your teenager think about who treats her well and discuss the joys of friendship. Banning a friendship usually backfires and leads to a big divide in the parent-child relationship.
I worked with a young girl whose parents did not like the girlfriend she was hanging around with. After several attempts to get their daughter to end the friendship, the parents decided to forbid the relationship. The child withdrew from her parents. She’d hide out in her room for hours. There was a lack of trust and a lot of anger on both sides.
Setting boundaries can be tough, but by talking to your daughter about friendship, without judging her or imposing restrictions, you increase the chances that she will go to you when she has problems with friends.
Here are some tips for having this conversation.