Banning a friend is easy. But what does the child lose with this friendship?
Parents often think that the easiest way to protect their child from "bad company" is to say straightforwardly: don't be friends with them. A new study shows that such a ban can actually work: friendships that mothers disapprove of are more likely to break up.
But the story doesn't end there. A broken friendship doesn't always mean a child is better off. He or she may lose a loved one, support at school, and a sense of security among peers. And if new friends are few, the consequences can be worse than the unwanted friendship itself.
Researchers from Florida Atlantic University and Mykolas Romeris University in Lithuania monitored the friendships of 394 9-14 year olds over two school years. They found that if a child felt that his mother did not approve of his friend, the likelihood of the friendship disintegrating increased. The work is published in Child Development.
Important: the study doesn't say parents should turn a blind eye to dangerous relationships. If there is violence, pressure, substance use, bullying, or other real risk, intervention is necessary. But in ordinary situations, an outright ban can destroy friendships without giving the child a better alternative.
Details
The study involved 394 Lithuanian public school students: 200 boys and 194 girls. The children's ages ranged from 9 to 14 years old. Almost all participants were ethnic Lithuanians, so the authors are careful about generalising to other countries and cultures.
Researchers studied not just acquaintances or casual classmates, but stable mutual best friendships. That means both children called each other friends. In all, the researchers identified 197 such pairs that persisted at the beginning of the observational study.
Three times over two school years, the children filled out questionnaires. They told how supportive they felt of their friendships and noted whether they thought their mother disapproved of their friends. The researchers then looked at which friendships survived and which friendships disintegrated.
About a third of the mutual best friendships later ended. And children's perceived maternal disapproval predicted a higher risk of friendship dissolution - both directly and indirectly, through deteriorating support within the relationship.
The mechanism looked like this: when a mother explicitly disapproves of a friend, the friendship may become less warm and less supportive. The point of view of the second child, the friend, was particularly important. If he or she feels that the relationship is becoming less secure and enjoyable, the bond gradually weakens and more often ends.
In other words, a ban or harsh disapproval may not work as an instant break-up, but as a slow erosion of the atmosphere within the friendship. The child sees the friend less, talks less about them at home, the friend feels the strain, support declines - and the relationship fails.
Why it matters
A parental ban may look like a quick win: the unwanted friend is gone from the child's life. But researchers emphasise that breaking up a friendship alone doesn't necessarily solve the problem. The child may not have a more suitable replacement.
This is especially important for children who already have few friends. Losing a close bond can make a child more lonely, vulnerable to bullying, or more dependent on the next available company - which may not necessarily be better than the previous one.
There are risks to the relationship with parents, too. If a child perceives the intervention as pressure, control or unfair, they may begin to withhold friendships, talk less about school and resist adult advice more strongly.
Earlier studies by the same research team showed that maternal disapproval of friends in response to a child's behavioural problems can worsen the child's standing among peers and exacerbate difficulties that parents were trying to prevent.
The practical conclusion, therefore, is not that parents need to keep silent. Rather, an outright ban is a blunt instrument. It may break a bond, but it may not teach a child how to choose friends, notice pressure, assert boundaries, and build healthier relationships.
Background
Friendships in childhood and early adolescence are not an afterthought. Through friends, children learn to trust, negotiate, argue, reconcile, get support and understand their place among peers.
In doing so, parents do see risks that a child may not see. A friend can be a bad influence, drag them into rule-breaking, devalue their learning, pressure them or use them. So the desire to intervene is often understandable.
But there is a difference between observing and banning. A gentler strategy is not to ban friendships outright, but to ask questions, discuss specific behaviours, build trust at home and help the child see for themselves what is good for them in the relationship and what is not.
For example, instead of "don't be friends with him", it works better to talk about facts: how you feel after the dialogue, whether this person supports you, whether he makes you do things you don't want to do, whether you can say "no" to him. This approach does not guarantee quick results, but it is less likely to break trust and better teaches the child independence.
Source
Goda Kaniušonytė, Mary Page Leggett-James, Brett Laursen, "Perceived maternal disapproval of peer affiliates predicts child friendship dissolution", Child Development, 2026.
The study involved 394 schoolchildren 9-14 years old from Lithuania. Researchers collected data on mutual best friendships, perceived support and maternal disapproval of friends three times over two school years. The analyses showed that perceived maternal disapproval was associated with subsequent friendship breakdown - directly and through decreased support in the relationship.