Moms seem to have a sixth sense about your friends. They’re good at sniffing out the bad influences from the genuinely chill hangs long before you figure it out yourself. According to a new study published in Child Development by researchers from Florida Atlantic University and Mykolas Romeris University, when moms disapprove of one of their kids’ friends, there’s a strong chance that the friendship is doomed.
Researchers tracked nearly 400 Lithuanian students between the ages of 9 and 14 over two school years, focusing on their confirmed mutual best friendships, the kind of close friends who identified each other as best friends across multiple surveys.
By the end of the study, roughly ¼ of those friendships had fallen apart. One of the strongest indicators that could predict whether that friendship would last was if the child believed their mom disliked their friend.
That instantly triggers the vision of a mom storming into a kid’s bedroom, demanding that the kids stop hanging out with their dirtbag friend. It’s a lot more nuanced than that, though.
Your Mom’s Disapproval Means More Than You Might Realize
By just expressing a simple, nonconfrontational disapproval, the friendship naturally weakened over time. The kids would often become withdrawn or distant from their friends without realizing it, while the friend on the receiving end started feeling less supported and less emotionally connected over time. Eventually, the relationship faded, to be left as a lingering memory about the kid that used to hang out with, you know, the weird kid who was a troublemaker, what was his name?
It’s a subtle thing, but one that the study’s senior author, psychologist Brett Laursen, described in the most blunt way possible, describing moms as “very effective relationship ‘hitmen.’”
Moms, it seems, have tremendous power over their kids social lives, but the researchers cautioned that they should wield this power responsibly, since removing one bad egg from your kids life doesn’t automatically replace them with a future Nobel Peace Prize winner. Removing a friend could leave them alone and vulnerable to everything from bullying to even worse influences than the one that was booted out of their life.
The post ‘Relationship Hitmen’: Your Mom Has a Talent for Subtly Killing Friendships She Doesn’t Like, Scientists Say appeared first on VICE.
