Teen daughter’s friend comes from ‘complicated’ home

Dear Carolyn: My 15-year-old daughter has a friend from a complicated household — mom is an alcoholic and just got out of jail for her second drunk-driving offense. Parents’ marriage has been rocky for years — and dad overshares with friend about it.

There is also a lot of chaos and drama surrounding friend — switching plans, changing schedules, changing times, no-shows, telling one friend to lie to another, leaving camp days early (leaving my daughter alone), etc. Basically, this friend is a kiddo who seems to schedule with several people at once and then picks the plan that looks best. Scheduling any activity with friend is complicated and always involves several changes, often after I’ve already changed my schedule to make the plan happen.

As a mom, I’m struggling with how to support my daughter without trashing her friend. I won’t cut off the relationship, and can’t, but it’s been frustrating to watch as a mom — and frustrating as the driver. The friend is a nice and pleasant young lady at our house and my daughter does enjoy time with her — when she shows up. Any suggestions?

— Mom

To start, my favorite suggestion: Trust this to pass. Whatever “this” is — the reliance on you as a driver, the situation in the friend’s home, the roles these girls play in each other’s lives. The greatest predictor of the end of a friendship is adolescence itself.

Time might be the second-best predictor, but chaos is right up there with it. Chances are just as good your daughter will tire of this friend’s turmoil as her friend will tire of your daughter’s steadiness. Or friend and daughter both will mature into calm.

It’s also possible the miasmas of their lives and interests will swirl off in other directions for any number of other reasons independent of how they feel about each other.

Another favorite suggestion is to use this as an opportunity to teach your daughter to think more deeply about people and friendship and, ultimately, herself. For example, a friend with a dysfunctional home life is an opening to discuss compassion. Getting stood up is a chance to talk about where mitigating circumstances and accountability overlap on a Venn diagram. Unreliable plans are platforms to talk about expectations, respect, limits, discretion, boundaries — when, where, how, and why to set them.

I say “discuss” and “talk about,” but that really means “ask leading questions about, judiciously, when she’s receptive, lest she flee.”

More important, though, you want her to emerge from this friendship — regardless of whether it lasts — not as the person getting switched and rescheduled and canceled on and endlessly jerked around, but as a thoughtful participant in her own social transactions. Difficult people are everywhere, so help me; 15 is a good time for her to develop skills to interact with them productively, not just in her social circles but also at work, in the neighborhood, in the checkout line, and at every Thanksgiving for the rest of her natural life.