What if learning to spot toxic relationships began before adolescence? An educator offers a game to easily set up at home, from the first years of school.
We teach them to pay attention by crossing the road, to say hello, to hold their fork, not to cry in stores. But who taught them to say no when a boyfriend lowers them, excludes them or pushes them to do something that they do not want to do? For Laurie Gozlan, specialized educator and founder of the Instagram account @little_deviera_grandthis skill is too often left out. “If you teach your child very early on to recognize good friends, and healthy relational behavior, he will not doubt his value and will not imagine that this is the problem when he finds himself in front of a toxic friend (what will happen, because it is inevitable!)” She writes in legend of a post that made hundreds of parents react. The stake is clear: to prevent children from internalizing the ordinary violence of certain friendships. Because a repeated humiliating remark, a look that judges, a constant away, it damages. And it starts early. Very early.
“We train to locate nice behaviors, and those who bite”, tells Laurie Gozlan. Indeed, if the child has not been equipped, he will often think that it is normal to be mistreated. Or worse, that it is his fault. Result: a self -esteem that collapses, a difficulty in laying down its limits, a tendency to sura. Thus, it offers a tool to reverse the trend. A game that we play at home, in ten minutes flat, with a sheet and scissors. The child becomes an actor. He sorts, he thinks, he argues. He develops what the educator calls a “relational compass”. He learns that we have the right to move away from a comrade who hurts us, even if he is “popular”, even if he then said that he joked. He also understands what a “top” friend is: the one who awaits him at the recess, who says forgiveness if he has injured, who listens to him, who shares, who encourages. And he spots, without guilt, the “Stop friends”: those who ignore, humiliate, control. “Knowing how to choose your friends is already protecting yourself”, summarizes Laurie Gozlan.
The game, precisely, is called “friend top / friend stop”. The principle: make two panels – one “top friend”, the other “friend stop” – and stick there, every day for a week, cards describing concrete situations. He laughs at your hair. He helps you when you are sad. He says you are zero. He encourages you when you try something difficult. The child chooses the right category, then discuss it. After seven days, the first results will be visible.
The idea is to make this little exercise a moment of soft, regular, accessible decryption. A moment when the child learns that he has the right not to love, not to accept, to say stop. And that is already a big step.
