You don’t have to be close friends with everyone you meet.
When you’re a kid, the social world is loud, chaotic, and constantly changing. One day, you have a best friend forever, and the next, you’re sitting alone at lunch because someone else wanted to play with someone new. As a parent, it breaks your heart to see that happen. But it’s also a great opportunity to introduce one of the most important lessons about relationships: not everyone is meant to be your people.
You don’t owe everyone friendship just because they sit next to you in class or invite you to play tag. And you don’t have to dislike someone to recognize that you’re not compatible.
We’ve all stretched ourselves too thin, trying to maintain too many relationships that aren’t reciprocal. We stay in friendships that are draining us or out of guilt and they are not always easy to walk away from.
One of the most important lessons I’m trying to teach my kids is: you can appreciate someone without inviting them to join your inner circle.
You can admire someone’s creativity, or laugh at their jokes, or enjoy playing soccer with them during recess. And still they might not be “your people.” That’s okay. You can respect someone’s perspective, even if it doesn’t align with yours. You can recognize strengths in others while also noticing when a friendship doesn’t energize you. That doesn’t make you closed off. It makes you discerning.
I let them see me appreciate people without turning every encounter into a friendship. I smile at neighbors, chat with parents at school events, offer kindness to strangers and still reserve my true opinions and emotions for the people who have earned that trust.
You can be a good person and still choose your people.
I hope my kids learn this faster than I did. I hope they trust their instincts and keep their circles sacred. And I hope, when they look around at the people closest to them,they feel the peace of knowing: these are my people, and that is enough.
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