When Kids’ Issues are Too Private to Discuss With Friends
In episode 23 of Dear Nina, I answer an anonymous listener’s question about how to still feel close to friends when you can no longer discuss issues that once might have bonded you like certain parenting conundrums. There comes a point when our kids’ problems are really their stories to share and we have to honor their privacy.
FIND EPISODE #23 ON APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY, OR ANYWHERE YOU LIKE TO LISTEN TO PODCASTS! You can also listen below.
Here to help me is Twin Cities author, Rebecca Prenevost, a mom of two daughters who enjoys reading, writing, and listening to all things related to parenting tweens and teens. Rebecca is the author of the Mom Walks series, a women’s fiction series that follows a mom and her two best friends as they navigate the trenches of parenting tweens. You can find her on Instagram, which is where we met!
This is my fourth Rebecca on Dear Nina!! Just a strange coincidence!
The Letter We Answered
Dear Nina,
Friendships are such a support network for us as parents, especially when our kids are young and there are so many commonalities as we figure out feeding and diapers and daycare. It was easy in those days to look to one another for guidance and support and advice. But it gets trickier when our kids become adolescents and teenagers and young adults. Questions of privacy come into play. Our kids will have bigger challenges we may not feel comfortable discussing, or we know our kids would not want us to violate their privacy by talking about them at all beyond the most basic details.
The issue is that’s easy for these holes in information between friends to feel like withholding, or like we are keeping secrets from a close friend, even if we really feel we have no choice.
How do we keep this private information about older kids from becoming un-breachable gaps? How do we keep that closeness while withholding something big in our family’s life? How can we establish new boundaries without compromising the friendship or hurting a friend’s feelings?
Thanks, Laura
Highlights From Our Conversation
— It’s tough to transition from the collaborative nature of parenting along with mom friends to keeping our kids’ privacy first and foremost. It can make us feel distant from friends.
— It’s probably safe to assume that our friends with older kids also have information they’re not sharing. Any reasonable friend would understand the private nature of this information and not push.
— Teens and young adults will stop sharing with parents if they feel their parents are repeating it all. There was a great Dear Abby years ago that hit on this. Abby told the adult kid to stop telling her mother anything. This is what we’re trying to avoid!
— College admissions can be a great example where there’s stress in the house over it, but not all teens want their stories shared.
— Hopefully you can say a few selective things (examples below) to let a friend know you’re going through a hard time without divulging all the details. And it should go without saying you shouldn’t share your friends’ kids’ details with others. The ideas below work for that, too.
— Something to say when friends ask about what’s going on and you don’t to share is this:
“I know you’re here to support me, and I so appreciate that. I hope you can do that without knowing all the details. It means a lot that you’re here.”
Or, “We’re having some struggles, but I can’t share the details right now.”
— Any reasonable friend will take the hint and not keep asking for personal details about your children (or anyone else’s children). We are all are entitled to privacy, a topic I covered with my mom in episode 8.
— Rebecca brought up the podcast, Ask Lisa, which I like, too. We specifically referenced episode 73 about how to handle seeing group texts on your kid’s phone with information another parent should probably know.
— And a comment from my Facebook group:
“I am usually an open book, but along with protecting my kids’ privacy, I find myself trusting fewer people with some of the very important issues my kids are facing. And I don’t think it’s necessary to share all in order to maintain a close friendship. I share certain things with only my husband, therapist, and a few friends who I’ve met outside my family and who don’t have any judgement or any ‘skin in the game.’
BETTER FRIENDSHIP GOAL OF THE WEEK
Think about ways you can feel close to your friends that don’t involve an exchange of information.
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Latest posts by Nina Badzin (see all)
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One Response
Such well thought out answers. Some of us are sharers. Some are not. I have learned to be a bit more cautious with issues that are not mine to share. Such as when it comes to issues of my children or their wishes for me to know, but not share. That trust is special. I also don’t offer my opinion unless asked.
Sometimes people need to vent. If asked, then, yes, I would relate an incident I learned from. Closeness to a true friend is the best thing ever. You just walk away feeling good and often with a solution or an insight you never had.