Parents Labeling a Kid’s Friend a Bad Influence Can Backfire

Parents Labeling a Kid’s Friend a Bad Influence Can Backfire

By Francine Russo

Parents have always blamed their teens’ misbehavior on their kids’ friends: they may say their kids “fell into bad company” or “got in with the wrong crowd.” To combat what they see as pernicious influences, parents have responded with strategies that range from criticizing the wayward companions to forbidding any contact altogether. This type of response by parents has been documented from the Netherlands to China.

In fact, the question remains as to whether placing these supposed bad influences off-limits actually helps children. “Not a bit” is the answer, according to child psychology researchers. In fact, this type of response actually backfires. As researchers have found in several studies, parents’ disapproval or restrictions on hanging out with a supposed bad actor actually makes behavior problems worse—and the experts are not exactly sure why that is. “People have seen this; they scratch their heads and say they’re not sure what to make of it,” says Florida Atlantic University psychologist Brett Laursen.

Previous research has provided a partial explanation that fits with most parents’ experience. As kids begin to forge identities separate from their parents, they resist parental direction and control. As the father characters in the musical The Fantasticks sing, “You can be sure the devil’s to pay/The minute that you say no.” One study entitled “Forbidden Friends as Forbidden Fruit,” from researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, demonstrated this truism with a sample of Dutch boys aged about 13. The researchers found that when their parents forbade them to associate with friends who were got in trouble, the boys sought out and clung to these off-limits friends. The result? Their own troublemaking, defined as behaviors including vandalism, theft and arson, increased.

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Such rebellious behavior provides only a piece of the answer. These interactions are actually a complex mix of motivations. Laursen, with his co-author Goda Kaniušonytė, sets out a broader explanation in a new study. Researchers questioned almost 600 Lithuanian boys and girls aged 9 to 14 at the beginning, middle and end of a school year. At each point, the students answered a range of questions on tablets about their emotions, their behavior (from shoplifting to breaking windows), their relationship with their mother, and their mother’s feelings about the friends they had and the ones their mom wished they had—the good students, for example.

An important dimension was included that had not been considered in previous research. The researchers measured maternal disapproval at each point in time. They also asked the children to list classmates that they liked, disliked or found disruptive.

A clear pattern emerged. Whenever a child had behavior problems—and their mother disapproved of their friends —these peers, in turn, then disliked the child and the kid’s behavior got worse. That behavior problems are linked to rejection makes sense, Laursen says. “The mystery is, why did mom’s intervention lead to more problems? And it’s because the classmates hate it. Kids hate parents intervening in peer relationships.” He adds that rejected kids tend to hang out with other excluded kids who themselves are likely to have behavior problems.

The idea that parental interference in peer friendships can make a child seem “uncool” to peers and set them off on a disruptive trajectory is a really new insight, says Northern Illinois University developmental psychologist Nina Mounts. It fits with research showing that prohibitions are probably not a good strategy for parents, she says. “Consulting with kids, on the other hand, leads to more prosocial behavior, more empathy and better social skills.”

Tensions around finding their place can make it difficult to navigate the perils of being a teenager. “Adolescence is a very anxious time,” says Vanessa Bradden, a family therapist based in Chicago. “Kids are trying to figure out who their peers are.” Although parents may be tempted to express dislike for certain friendships, she says it is probably better to hold back judgment and express understanding for your child’s situation, including how urgently they need to fit in with their peers. You might suggest, “I know kids are vaping and drinking, but I’m most concerned with what you’re doing and how you can be safe.” If you find out your child has been doing something dangerous with friends, you can express how serious it is and implement an appropriate punishment—maybe to stay home after school for two weeks with no video games. But saying they can no longer be friends with someone should not be the punishment, she advises.

Boston Children’s Hospital clinical psychologist Erica Lee counsels parents to take a deep breath, try to stay calm and to understand what their child actually did and why. You may have only part of the story, she says. “It’s important to say to your kids, I want to understand what happened from your perspective.” You can ask them why certain friends are so attractive to them even though they enable behavior that results in bad consequences. It’s rare that behaviors are so egregious that you have to separate your kids from friends and risk social isolation, she says. Therapy might be an option for a child in that kind of trouble.

An important takeaway from his research, Laursen says, is that parental intervention in a child’s friendships disrupts not only their social life but damages the parent-child relationship. “And the one thing we know is that if parents are going to be effective in middle school, kids have to have a close, warm relationship with that parent,” he says. “You have to stay in the game, in other words. And by trying to cut your child off from their friends, you are automatically removing yourself from the game.”