Can you make kids who have 'bad chemistry' with each other become friends?

[lemonyone]

Have you ever managed to do it?

Background:
DS8 and next door neighbour's kid are the same age, in the same class at school and they basically have the same group of friends.
But they have 'bad chemistry'. Both are sweet and lively, but stubborn and argumentative. I think they both want to be top dog.
We stopped doing playdates together (on non-spoken agreement with the other set of parents) because they would often bicker so much. Both are really well behaved during playdates with other children.

But what is making me sad is that both children are aware that the other kid often has their best friends over to play, and the one kid next door is 'left out' and just staring longingly over the fence. This morning, the NDNson declared he was having a party with X,Y,Z [DSs best friends] next weekend and then left a massive pause at the end as if to say "and guess what, you're not invited".

It would be so good to be able to get these two happy in each other's company, as they could play in groups or just run next door to play for an hour or so before bedtime. I think that is what the NDN and I had hoped for when we realised we were moving in next door to a classmate.

I know my DS would like to try and be better friends (although this boy does royally wind him up). Any suggestions on how to make this possible? Or should I just give up?

[BTW - I know you can't 'force' friendships, I'm not looking to force it at all.)

Are they eight? Is your son old enough to grasp that, if he wants not to be the child staring longingly over the fence at his friends playing, that he needs to figure out a way of co-existing with the other child without outright warfare? Could you get together with the other parents and figure out a plan of campaign where you promote the same (non-engagement?) techniques with the boys - eg that they don't have to be friends, but they need to co-exist to be able to see their friendship group? Teach them both to back off?

I feel a certain sympathy for the two boys, to be honest. Hard enough to share friends with someone you don't like without living next door to them too, and have your parents wishing you would be friends.

LadyGregory - I've been trying to teach him to back off. They seem to delight in goading each other sometimes, but I think it might often be due to feeling left out the previous time. I''ve chatted to the other parents and we're both at a loss as to why they bicker. It's like they are brothers rather than friends.

I'm not sure why you put the bit at the end - I promise I have not tried to force the issue at all. But yes, I do wish they could be friends as he had a best mate next door at our last house and it was lovely as they could just hop next door and hang out.
I totally understand that you can't force kids to be friends, any more than you can force adults - but if anyone has had bickering siblings or friends that have found a successful technique of reining this in, I'd love to know.

Ok, just re-read your post.
Yes, you are right, they do have to share friends, a class and a road and that might be enough for them. I guess DS shared all those things with previous NDNkid and still got on really well.

Also, my kids don't really bicker that much with each other, so I'm not so good at knowing how to handle it. I feel as though if we could get past the oneupmanship they would be good friends as they love many of the same things.

We have a similar situation. Not NSN but lives in the same street. The two boys play differently and my DS ends up terribly frustrated if the other boy comes into the house. This never happens on any other play date they just don't seem to 'gel'.

Other child has a tendency to deliberately gate crash when my DS has other friends round to play, which then ends up with the play dates (which are rate for us) ruined for my DS. I have allowed it in the past out of politeness but am putting my foot down now.

I wouldn't expect an adult to get on with someone just because they live in the same street.

My DS would never be allowed to gate crash someone else's party.

It would of course be nice if they could be friends, but they aren't and my DS needs me to protect his time with his actual friends.

Not everyone can get along...

Thanks PinkSapphire.

Of course you're right - adults don't have to get on, so why should my DS and the NDN. I just know that there is willing on both their parts. My DS wishes he could get on as it would be nice to have a friend next door (and he has an awesome mine craft set up!) and the NDN has spoken to my DD and said he feels sad about being left out and wishes they could be friends better.

So they'd like to be better friends, I just don't quite know how to make it happen as they start bickering after the first 15 mins! So should I play with them? Take them out somewhere to have fun? What works with your kids when they bicker a lot? I think that is more the angle I'd like to know about.

My children don't fight very much, if they do it is usually about needing some space from each other.

When I do intervene it's usually to remind them to speak nicely to each other and to 'debate' rather than bicker.

I'm not sure taking them out somewhere will help. What about a project they could do together? Building something or painting something?

I can't help thinking that it's in their favour to not get along. On a deeper level, it'd be claustrophobic to live right next door to a close friend that shares lots of your friends and your growing up experiences. Boundaries and personal space and separateness are bring preserved at the expense of a few missed social opportunities.
It'd be worse if they were in each other's pockets, egging each other on, cramping each other's style, competing against each other, self judging comparatively, etc.

You may have hit it on the head Painted and Zinxie! Perhaps they are saying they see enough of each other already. Maybe keeping them spaced apart is better. We have been doing that for the past year and respecting that they want to play with friends independently of each other, but then both of them are so sad when they aren't included as well. I feel like bashing their heads together. It's like, despite both their willingness to try and be mates, their chemistry together is beyond their control.
We also live scattered about from the other friends as the catchment area surrounds many villages, so having playmates is a rich pain and can't always be done. That is when it would be lovely to just chuck him next door or vice versa.

They really are more like brothers who get on intensely well at times, and have battles at other times. As said, i've never had that, so am at a bit of a loss.

Ah well, I'll just let it go. It makes me feel for parents though who have no choice in having bickering kids living under the same roof!

Yes, and bickering so often comes about because people are in need of personal space. Like a dog growling when his tail has been pulled one too many times.

There are children living a few doors down from us who ideally should have been convenient friends for my daughters, but they always skirted around each other. Instinctive boundary creation schemes!

Good life lesson for them too, to see their own knee jerk reactivity and how it defines their interactions. Talk to your son about cause and effect, and how it isn't just a scientific principle, but a feature of each moment of our lives and every decision we make.
"If you snarl at someone they don't want to be in your company. Do you choose to snarl? If yes, live with your decision. If you didn't choose to snarl....how did it happen, and what can you do differently?!"

It's a good opportunity for waking up to self and other interactions, which could really stand him in good stead later in life.

It's not so much a 'problem' as an opportunity. But in an unexpected way.
That's how I'd look at it, anyhow.

Thanks Zinxie - you are right about kids skirting around each other. DD has a schoolmate about 2 roads away and they don't particularly adore each other in a 'meh' way so we don't bother getting them to play.

And yup - I do use it as a life-lesson for DS. He is pig-headed (as is the other boy). I think they are fine with boys who are more 'alpha' than them as they'll give in easily to demands, and fine with easy-going boys. It's that they both consider themselves to always be 'right' so minor quibbles escalate quickly. But that has been the way it was from even before them starting school together.

I might take them swimming next week though and see if they get on outside of their 'territory'. I haven't tried that in a while. They probably can't quibble too much if they have water shooting up their noses!

Have you tried actually sitting them down and getting them to talk about it? Children can (note, can) be incredibly insightful and sensible sometimes.

Oh crumbs! The 'always being right' one is chewy, isn't it.

"Would you rather be right, or happy?"

If I had a penny for everytime I'd had to interject with that question, at family mealtimes....

"Being right doesn't make you happy, being loved makes you happy, and being right and being loved are two different things!"

Sounds like these two are knocking horns to see who is top dog between themselves.

Have you seen the videos in YouTube of collations of footage of dogs that sit on cats?! It's kind of amazing. The dogs just turn round their bums and literally sit on the cats. It immobilises the cats. So the dogs are top dogs! But then they just have to sit there, and it's actually boring for them. True, they are no longer bothered by the cats, but..it's boring for them.
You could show him the videos and explain the concept of Pyrrhic victory!

Hi Hakluyt,

I've tried with my DS to work out why they bicker - he says he would love to get on with the NDN but that the NDN bosses him around and that he's not very kind. My DD has spoken to the NDN and he says precisely the same thing about my DS!

Perhaps they are just too similar to get on fully. They would both like to get on with each though, and that is the frustrating part for me and the other parents.

Zinxie - you have it down to a T!!!!!

That is exactly what i've always said about these two - that they'd rather be 'right than liked' and it doesn't work well in their favour. I know they both have upset friends at school from being too rigid about things. That is why gently (not forcing at all) these two to learn how to compromise and knock off some of the 'always being right' corners off them might have been a good lesson. Partly because it does come from a place of them both wishing they could become better friends.

That's what I mean by knowing how some families must have to deal with this every hour of every day by siblings who have to clash.

I also should mention that the parents and I share the morning school run, so this is when they particularly hurt each other by regaling what the other one was left out of at the weekend. They are both twits sometimes!

But, I guess I have to know when to give up...

Yes, we can't learn our children's lessons for them. But we can be insightful and gentle and communicative so that they can see a picture of what they are doing.

If you non reproachfully show the picture, that's good parenting, imo.

If you model, in your life together, admitting when you're wrong, gracefully letting things drop, offering the olive branch, then you really are offering nutrition.

Wether he eats it or not is up to him!

I grew up in an intellectually aggressive home. A great thing for me was when it was explained to me that being intellectually aggressive is ultimately trivial. It's assertion of one thing over another, and a game of ego, nothing more. And the deepest values involve love and peace and promoting and modelling harmony.

I know these are big issues to bring up, when we're ostensibly talking about two kids playing, But in the particular is contained the universal!
Your son isn't too young to watch the film Ghandi and enjoy it? Or is that for a few years hence? Anyhow, bringing up kids is a long game and they do seem to alternate between stubborn self assertion and receptivity... And you never know till later, which bits of what you offered took root!

Wise words. Thank you.

I do feel like there is a grain of my child's entire character that is contained in this friendship life-lesson. It's a side that I don't adore (and I know it frustrates NDNparents too) because my DS can be so rigid about things sometimes that he shoots himself in the foot and I wish he really would be more 'Ghandi-like' on occasion. I find myself singing "Let it Go" to him quite often! (there's a hideous punishment right there).

I can be rather like this at times as well - enjoying a good debate about things and perhaps not always listening to the other side of the story. I try and let things drop quickly if I can. Maybe that is why my DS sometimes drives me mad - because he can be like this too.

If they are going to be friends they will do it in their own time.
Between the ages of 8 and 12 me and the boy next door couldn't really stand each other, we were the same age with the same group of friends. We were always fighting and winding each other up. I think it was because we were both to similar and strong willed. 35 years later we are best friends and throughout our teenage years we were insinseparable. Let them find their own pace and it might happen naturally.

Thanks Mike07 - that's interesting! That's exactly how it is with DS and NDN - similar and strong willed. Perhaps deep down they don't enjoy being with themselves?!

But also, because of that, I have a feeling that if something 'clicked' with them they would be a force for good, not evil .

I guess we'll see if time will let them click.