Raising Best Friends

As parents, we make lots of investments in the lives of our children and we pray they’ll pay off when they’re raised into adulthood. We invest time, energy, and money in things we believe will build character, skills, discipline, and hopefully bring college scholarships. As a mom, I haven’t always done everything right, but one investment that my husband and I have worked hard to make is the friendship investment. I’m not talking about taking our children to play dates or signing them up for activities so they’ll find good friends, I’m talking about investing in their friendships with one another as siblings. Romans 12:10 says,

“Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” ​​

When my oldest children were little, I heard a popular Christian parenting expect say something like,

“Your children should be best friends. ​​They will be together long after you are gone and they need to learn how to love each other.”

He described taking his two little ones to the large picture window at the front of their house and told them to look out at the world. He explained that the world out there can be cold and cruel, but in this house, we have love and concern for one another. Friends may come and go, but you will have each other. You will need to love and help each other when you’re out there in the world. I never forgot that wisdom. 

Because I wanted my children to know the joy of having built-in best friends in their siblings, I asked God to help me help them love each other. With six children, all sorts of situations and issues have popped up over the years. At times, a couple of them have been closer than others. However, the one thing I’ve been intentional about as a mom is creating opportunities for brotherly (or sisterly) love to abound.

When they were little, this looked like:

• shared toys
• daily play-times together
• quick apologies (from the heart) and
• friend times with siblings included

As the children have gotten older, we’ve done things like:

• team cooking nights (a brother paired with a sister on each team)
• everyone attending events for one brother or sister competing or performing
• sports that span the ages, like running and triathlon, and
• lots of events in which the whole family participates

​Now that my older children are adults, they plan special days for the younger ones to hang out with them, go to a movie, head out for a run together, or play games. Every Friday night in our house is pizza night, when everyone comes together to spend the evening watching movies and laughing. We celebrate achievements with giant banners made by siblings, streamers, and cookie cakes. We find any reason to celebrate life with one another. ​

We’ve been blessed to have children who have responded well to our intentionality in developing their relationships, but that doesn’t mean we never have problems. When two siblings seem to be struggling, I usually pair them up and make them do something together, like a deep cleaning project, or even something fun like making cookies. One house rule is no criticizing or harassing each other for any reason, ever. ​​

Lest it sounds like everything is perfect in my little world, this article almost didn’t get written because of an unexpected sibling rift. Two of my children go to college together and this summer, they took a school trip to Israel. After traveling on a very long plane ride, my son got a little tired of his sister who “coughed all night and kept jumping over him to make several trips to the bathroom.” I had visions of them coming off the plane arm-in-arm, closer than ever because of their wonderful time together in the Holy Land. My bubble was burst. After listening to their stories and seeing all their pictures, I was relieved to know they did have an amazing time together on the trip. And, of course, I realized my expectations were a little too high for anyone to live up to. ​

I know not all families have children with good relationships, and for some moms this is an area of intense frustration and heartache, but God has grace for whatever place a family is in. ​

He promises to give wisdom when we lack it and ask for it. If you are a mom struggling with sibling rivalry, or even sibling apathy, I would suggest you ask the Lord to give you wisdom to know how to help your children love one another. Then take steps to build opportunities for love to abound. It may require some sacrifices of time and energy on your part as a mom, but I promise the investment will be worth it. ​

How are you intentional in your family about raising best friends?