by Marijane Suttor

Created on: February 10, 2008   Last Updated: March 12, 2011

For many teens, friendships come and go, while at the same time they tend to take family members for granted. So how does one instill in teens the skills needed to build lifelong relationships? These are tips for teaching teens how to maintain relatioships that last longer that weeks or past high school.

Be a good example

If teens witness parents keeping up old acquaintances and friendships, it demonstrates how to conduct their own friendships. So call up old high school or college chums and stop postponing visits with them. Allow them to see the importance of these friendships.

Correspondence

In the last few years correspondence has changed greatly since parents were teenagers. Now the tools for maintaining friendships are so valuable to future relationships. Proper use of social networking sites can be invaluable to building relationships that last a lifetime.

Valuing everyone

Discuss with the teens that one friendship should never be deserted for a boyfriend or girlfriends. Unfortunately boyfriends and girlfriends can come and go, but the people that are loyal are the friends that are there consistently. The teen should always designate some time to friends that he/she is not seeing romantically.

Avoid resentments

Try to not let small disagreements keep friendships apart. Friendships can break apart for petty reasons such as wearing the same outfit as teens. Teach the teen about perspective. Ten years from now, that outfit will be long gone, but the friend is still there. Allow some of the more minute trials in a relationship pass and consider some forgiveness.

Always make time

We tend to give the excuse that we are too busy even though we really do want to keep up the friendship. Teach the teen not to make excuses. True friends always make time for each other.

Even if the relationship grows apart, keeping photos of favorite times spent together can help to keep friendships up. Sometimes sending an old photo over email to an old friend is enough for a good laugh.

Remember family

It is important to keep in touch with family members. Often times teens are very close to cousins as they are growing up, but once they graduate from high school, they go their separate ways and it makes it more difficult to keep up relationships. So make sure the teen knows that family is important and those cousins will be with them for a lifetime.

The most meaningful relationships in a person's life often begin as teenagers. It is important to foster in the teen that it is important to keep these friendships for long time into the future.

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