ANASAZI Foundation

“Picking” Friends

Posted by Mike Merchant (Willachee) on October 8, 2009 | No Comments

Recently, I received a phone call from a mother who was concerned about her son’s choice of friends.  She said she wished he would “pick” better friends.  I have often thought about what it means to pick friends.  In my experience, I am not sure I have ever consciously picked a friend.  It almost feels as if I have ended up with friends–depending upon the story I was telling at the time.  Tell stories of blame and I end up with friends who tell stories of blame.  Tell stories of love and I end up with friends who tell stories of love.

A YoungWalker described to a group of parents in a seminar having the same experience, she looked at her mom and announced, “It all started with the hair!”

Surprised, her mom asked what she meant by that.  Her daughter then explained, “Do you remember when I was about 11 or 12 years old and you and I used to fight about my hair before school each morning?  You wanted me to wear my hair like the little girls, with ribbons and bows.  I wanted to wear my hair like the older girls.  Inevitably, you were bigger than me, so I would end up getting on the bus with ribbons and bows.  By the time I sat down, I would have pulled them all out.  When I arrived at school my friends would ask me what happened to my hair.  And then I would launch into a story of how bad I hated my mom and how controlling she was.”

She then said, “Mom, now that I am 17 years old and I look back, I realize that all my friends are friends who hate their moms…and friends who hate their moms don’t do the kinds of things mothers want them to do.  Do they?”

What kind of story do we give our children to tell about us?  Perhaps our greatest influence as it relates to our children’s friends lies in the answer to this question.