My Child Has Fallen Out With Their Friends. What Can I Do?

By The Synapse Team · Published 6 November 2026

In brief

• Falling out with friends is a normal part of growing up, and most rifts settle or give way to new friendships. But it is painful going through it.
• It is worth acting when your child is isolated for weeks, starts avoiding school, or is being targeted rather than just left out.
• Listen first. Rushing to fix it, or telling them they will make new friends, doesn’t help and can make them stop telling you.
• If you want to talk it through, Message Mollie. It costs nothing and might be helpful.

They come home and go straight to their room. The group chat has gone quiet, or worse, it carries on without them. Weekend plans happen and they are excluded. For a teenager, losing their friends can feel like losing their place in the world, and watching it is very hard.

Why friendships wobble in the teenage years

Friendship groups shift a lot in adolescence. Young people are working out who they are, and who they want to be with. Changes like starting secondary school, choosing options or moving into sixth form can split groups that once felt solid. Phones mean a falling-out no longer stays within the school gates. It follows them home, into every group chat and every photo of a night they were not invited to.

When it is probably “part of growing up”

• They still have at least one person they can talk to, in school or outside it.
• They are upset, but still going to school and doing things they enjoy.
• It is linked to a particular row or change, and things are slowly settling.

When it is worth getting help

• They have been on their own for a few weeks and it is not getting better.
• They are avoiding school, clubs or anywhere they might see the group.
• They seem low, anxious or withdrawn at home and at school.
• It has mutated from being left out to being targeted, in person or online.
• They talk as if nobody likes them, or as if something is wrong with them.

If your child is being bullied, read online bullying and cyberbullying and relational aggression, the kind of bullying that often goes unnoticed.

If your child talks about not wanting to be alive or about harming themselves, speak to your GP straight away or call NHS 111. In an emergency, call 999. See our urgent support page.

What you can try this week

• Listen before you fix. “That sounds really hard” helps more than a plan, at least at first.
• Don’t promise it will blow over. “You’ll make new friends” is often true, but it can sound like you are not taking it seriously.
• Help them keep one connection going. A cousin, an old friend, a club or a team outside school can be a lifeline while things settle.
• Talk about the phone. Muting a group chat for a while is not giving up. It can stop the hurt arriving every few minutes.
• Think before contacting other parents. It rarely helps and can go badly wrong. If it is affecting school, speak to the school first.

How a Coach helps

Coaching gives your child someone safe and relatable outside the friendship group to talk to, who is not a parent or a teacher. Their Coach helps them make sense of what’s happening, rebuild their confidence and practise the difficult social steps, then talk through how each one went. Many Coaches are close in age to the young people they support, which makes those conversations easier. Your child keeps the same Coach from start to finish.

“At the start of coaching, socialising was really tough and I struggled with being disliked and how tough it was knowing that I was disliked. Since then I’ve seen some massive success in connecting with people and making solid friends.” Synapse Client*

*Shared with permission. Details have been changed to protect privacy.

If your child is lonely more than they are in conflict, read Alone together: why so many young people are drowning in loneliness. Not sure whether it is time to get help? Read Does my teenager need professional help?

Support from Synapse

Synapse provides clinically supervised behavioural health coaching for young people aged 11 to 25. Every programme begins with a clinical assessment. Read who we support and how Coaching works. The first conversation with Mollie is at no charge, with no commitment.

Message Mollie