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Friends & Belonging

Why return to a friend who sometimes leaves them out?

6 minute read

On Tuesday the friend walked off with someone else. On Wednesday your child is making them a card. You are not imagining the contradiction.

Lily draws a rainbow card for Emma at the kitchen table after a lonely recess at school.
Lily was alone at recess. By evening she is making Emma a card. Both moments belong to the friendship.

Your child comes out of school quiet. It takes until the car to find out why: the friend they always meet at recess went off with someone else, and your child spent the rest of it on their own.

By seven o’clock they are at the kitchen table, tongue slightly out, drawing a card. For the same friend. With a rainbow.

You look at the rainbow and think: why do you keep going back?

It is a fair question, and it comes from a good place. You were the one who saw their face at pickup. It is tempting to settle the whole thing with a label — good friend, bad friend, loyal, mean — and then protect your child accordingly.

But your child may be holding a longer story than that. The joke they share every Monday. The game that shut them out on Tuesday. And the hope that Wednesday will feel like Monday again.

from parents talking about this

They want the friend back. You remember Tuesday.

Parents describe children returning to a friend who excluded or insulted them, even after a painful pickup. Replies split between encouraging other friendships, approaching the teacher, and avoiding an adult campaign that could make the friendship harder for the child.

What parents try

  • Ask what your child enjoys with this friend as well as what happened on the hard day. Both belong in the account.
  • Widen the social world with another playmate; do not demand that your child renounce the old friend to prove they heard you.
  • If access to the group is repeatedly conditional or your child is afraid to object, tell the supervising adult what has happened across several days.

Where the advice bends

“Find better friends” may sound obvious to an adult and impossible to a child whose best moments are still with this one. A friendship can matter and still need a boundary.

A small move tonight

Ask: “What is it like on a good day with them? What changes on the days you end up alone?”

Parents talking about this

These are parent experiences and disagreements, not scientific evidence or advice that will fit every family.

Both parts can be true

There is research on this, and it is modest. A study of children aged five to seven found that friendship and victimization can coexist in school life — the same relationships can hold both.

It does not show why any particular child stays close to a friend who hurts them, or whether the friend means to. Those are questions to investigate, not answers to borrow from a study.

So it helps to look at the pattern rather than the single day:

  • What happens on the days that go well?
  • Who usually starts the playing?
  • Does the leaving-out happen with one group, or with lots of children?
  • Can your child say no without losing their place?

“They played with someone else” may simply be a friendship making room for other people.

“They let me play if I give them my chips” is something else entirely.

A friendship can be real and still need a boundary.
On a painted playground line, Zara stands right beside Marta and talks, after the last party invitation has gone.
In They All Got One, the invitations are gone and Marta didn’t get one. Zara comes and stands right next to her anyway, talking about grippy socks.

The trouble with “Why are you still friends?”

It is the natural question. It is also a slightly impossible one for a six-year-old. To answer it, they have to either prove their friend is good, or admit they have been making a foolish choice.

Most of us would change the subject too.

“What do you like about being with them?” may get a truer answer. So might “What happens when you tell them you didn’t like that?” You can believe the hurt without choosing a villain before you know the sequence.

If it keeps happening, if one child controls who gets into the group, or if your child is afraid of what happens when they object, bring in the adults who supervise recess. Be concrete about what happened and when, and ask what they see across several recesses. Your child should not have to fix a power imbalance by finding better wording.

Room for more than one friend

Helping another friendship grow is not the same as ordering this one to end. Invite over a child who is kind to yours. Keep talking about the difficult friendship without prosecuting it.

If the friend makes a better choice tomorrow, that counts. If the pattern carries on, that counts too.

The better question may not be “Why do they keep going back?” It may be “What does this friendship give them, what does it cost — and what would widen their options?”

Research behind this article

These sources inform the questions above. They cannot explain any one child on their own.