‘Can I Ban My Son’s Friend From Our Home?’

Illustration: Emma Erickson

Dear Emily,

My 10-year-old son has a friend who I cannot stand. The kid is crude, unkind, too physical (constantly play-fighting to the point of hurting other kids), uses bad language, and is completely screen-addicted to the point of having no other interests. Is there a way to limit this friendship without putting my son in a bad position or making him the villain? I’ve already made my feelings pretty clear to him and discouraged him from inviting him over, for better or worse.
— Not in My House

Dear Not in My House,

Remember when our children were these adorable sweet-smelling creatures who babbled and waddled and wore clothes that we selected for them and had “playdates” with the children of whichever parents we ourselves liked best from their preschool social orbit? And we in some part of our minds just kind of thought that parenting would be that way forever? Hahaha.
One of the coolest women I know, this absolutely lovely person who I’d be delighted to have over with her family every month or so for dinner, has a self-possessed, brilliant daughter who’s been in the same class as my older son every year since pre-K. They’re now in fourth grade. Have they forged a lasting friendship by now, cementing the bond between our two families? No; they don’t have a single sentence to say to each other, ever. Part of this is because the category of “girls,” as a whole, is somewhat alien to my son as a potential source of friendship, but part of it is just that they don’t have anything in common and never will. We could try to force it, but that would just be awkward for everyone. On the flip side, one of the kids he most loves to hang out with routinely uses his shirt as a tissue.

My point is that now that our kids are older, we don’t have much control over who they’re friends with, sort of like how we don’t have much control over the fact that they’re headed out the door to school in their favorite shirt they swear is clean because they’ve only worn it once already. The ship has sailed; they are no longer our little puppets, but semi-independent little entities of their own, with social lives and wardrobes and interests we sometimes struggle to comprehend, much less control.

When it comes to your particular struggle, I think you should fight your impulse to ban this kid from your home. If this guy — let’s call him Eugene — were someone you’d invited over yourself and was being crude, rude, rough, and wrapped up in his phone, you’d be well within your rights to decide against inviting him over ever again. But the thing is, Eugene is your son’s friend, not yours. If you discourage your son from inviting him over, you’re only making sure that all their interactions take place in locations you have no chance of potentially supervising. Plus, if you try to stop your son from being friends with Eugene, you run the risk of making hanging out with him seem more appealing, forbidden fruit — like the time we tried to curtail my older son’s time spent playing Roblox, and then found him up at 5 a.m. having stolen our phones so he could secretly game his pathetic little heart out; it only made the problem worse. At least if they’re hanging out under your roof, you can enforce your rules — you can keep kids from getting hurt during play-fighting, make everyone put their phones down, et cetera — and, postmortem, you can keep making your feelings clear.

Try debriefing with your son afterward, e.g., “How did it make you feel when Eugene said or did X to you?” “Do you think it’s okay that Eugene says X as much as he does?” These aren’t likely to be comfortable conversations, and your son might seem to totally shrug you off. But best-case scenario, if you’re persistent, he’ll at least be forced to see Eugene’s behavior through someone else’s eyes and to get the sense that it’s not the norm or something to emulate.

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