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Help your Children Make Friends Linda Blair’s Top Tips for Parents 55% of parents say they are anxious about making new adult friends and it’s therefore not surprising that some children are also not sure how to go about this. It’s useful to help them understand that the easiest way to make a friend is to BE a friend. Psychologist Linda Blair has some useful tips for children and parents.
Tips for Parents
Tips for Children Offer to Help If you think another child isn’t sure about whether to join in with what you’re doing, invite them to do just that. Everyone likes to feel included.
Sharing is Caring When you’re with your friends, offer to share your toys, so you can all play together.
Taking Turns Make sure everyone you’re with gets to have a turn at whatever you’re all doing. They’ll know that you are a kind person.
Let’s Pretend Knowing how other people are feeling will help you understand what makes them tick. If your school has a drama club, join it, and ask to be in the school play too, so you can learn how different characters feel and behave. At home, ask your family to play ‘let’s pretend’ games with you. Linda Blair says: “To make friends children must be able to consider life from other people’s points of view so they can appreciate and react to what others want to do and enjoy. Although young children show they’re capable of appreciating other viewpoints, they don’t normally apply this skill until they’re about 5 years old. This is why it’s important to start introducing them to this skill at a young age. Once they can understand empathy it will feel like second nature to them to behave in those adaptive ways.”
As a parent, you can help your child to make new friends. Families® Magazine suggests:
Read Stories about Sharing and Making Friends
Starting a Conversation
Talk about them afterwards. Start reading these stories as early as possible, even before you think your child can understand them! Whenever you see an opportunity, ask your child how a character could be feeling - and ask how they know.
Some children may want a parent’s help to start a conversation. Working with your child to think of a few things they can say like “I like your lunch box” or “What games do you like?” can help your child feel more comfortable about starting to talk to a potential new friend.
Joining In Encourage your child to watch what other children are playing and think about what they can do to fit in. Suggest they try joining the game by doing something that’s relevant to it e.g. if children are playing at running a library, volunteer to be somebody who wants to borrow a book.
Make a Head Start Before your child starts a new school year, find out if you can who else will be in their class. Then invite one of those children over to play with your child during the summer holidays. That way, once school starts, your child already has a friend from the start of term. This in turn will reduce their anxiety when they go into class on that first day.
Stress that it’s important not to be negative about the game or try to change it and if the others don’t want them to join in right then, to try again another day.
Do as I Do During the early years, parents are their child’s best role models. Try to show your children how to make friends by setting a good example - giving the people around you your full attention and listening fully whenever your child, your partner or other key people around you want to tell you something. Show you’re concerned about how other people are feeling and thank others when they do things you appreciate.
For more from Linda Blair, visit www.lindablair.co.uk
10 Families Dorset familiesonline.co.uk
