How to talk about: Making friends (in real life)

Many of us are worried that technology is ruining the social skills of our young people. Some people even fear that in 10 years, our kids won’t be able to actually talk to real humans. They will only know how to communicate in zeros and ones, and the world will collapse due to global warming. At that point the movie Waterworld will make way more sense.

But to avoid the tragedy that is Kevin Costner in Waterworld getting any closer to our current reality, we need to teach our kids the basics of making friends with real people in the real world – minus the harpoon-shooting jetskis.

The best way to talk to your child about making friends without a phone is to break down the basic process into five small steps.

Most kids are shy, until they learn how to be friendly. Being friendly isn’t about sharing toys, and it isn’t even really about manners (although they help). It’s about smiling, it’s about eye contact and it’s about saying hello.

Does your kid know how to smile and say, “Hi, my name is Kevin”? Ask your kid if they find it easy or hard to introduce themselves to new people. It may seem basic, but learning this one skill is the essential building block of friendship.

If all you said was “Hi, my name is Kevin”, and then you stood there staring into their eyes and breathing through your gills, that would be creepy. To make friends without technology your children will need to have something to say. The best thing to prepare your child with is good questions. Questions like:

• What’s your name?
• How has your day been?
• How are you?
• What has been the best thing and worst thing about your day?
• How long have you worked here?
• What’s your favourite thing about your job?
• Have you ever raced trolleys around the carpark?

(If those last three questions seem weird, it because they are supermarket specific. A supermarket is the perfect place for the whole family to practise the subtle art of asking questions to create conversation.)

Talk to you child about great questions and practise some casual Q&A together. Ask your child – “What’s your favourite question to ask when you meet someone for the first time?”

The point of asking questions is to find common ground. Some people find common ground by hating things. They say things like, “I hate maths. I hate marmite sandwiches. I hate the movie Waterworld."

Hating stuff is boring. It’s so much better to build common ground by a shared love for things. Teach your kids to say stuff like, “I love music, I love the beach. I love doing the dishes.” They'll find other people who will respond, “Me too! We should do those things together.” Boom. Friendship formed.

Speaking of hating things, don’t you just hate it when someone forgets something you’ve told them tons of times. “No, my name is not Keith - it’s Kevin." It gets awkward for everybody involved.

Being a good friend means remembering the things that people have told you about in the past and then asking them about it in the future.

If confidence comes from being secure in yourself, then it makes sense that the most socially confident children are the ones who are the best at being themselves, no matter who they are around. Children who don’t feel like they have to change the way they talk, dress or pretend that they’ve seen Waterworld just to impress people. These are the kids who are happy and confident just the way they are. So remember to tell your kids that you love them - that you even really, really like them! – just as they are.

If you coach your kids to be friendly, ask good questions, be positive, remember stuff and be themselves, they will be great friend-makers.

Practise those five steps of making friends yourself. Your children will learn significantly more from what you do than what you say. If you’re good at making new friends, chances are your kids will learn those skills from you.

The majority of young people do communicate more online than offline so it is more important than ever that we talk to our kids about how to make friends without devices. If they can master these skills in the real world, it will help them in the online world too. It might even help them to survive in the unlikely event of a post-apocalyptic dystopian world covered in water.