Taking Stock

• Naming friends: Who are your close friends?

• Reciprocity: Do the people you call friends also call you their friend?

• Commonality: What kinds of things do you have in common? Do you share characteristics, hobbies, interests?

• Diversity: In what ways do you differ? How do your differences enrich each other’s lives?

• Activities: What do you enjoy doing with your friends?

• Support: Who do you go to for homework help? Who can you trust to care about your safety and well-being? Who supports you at school?

• Friend Groups: Are some of your friends also friends with each other? If so, it can increase exchange of ideas and closeness.

them become more intentional if they’re not. Above are some prompts to get us thinking more about our friends and support networks and the role they play in our lives. Remember, it’s more important to have healthy supportive friendships than it is to have a lot of friends or friends with specific traits or social positions.

Closing Thoughts

As someone who is not myself a military child, I will probably never understand the full extent of their sacrifices. Throughout my years teaching in San Diego, they taught me about humor and courage in the face of adversity. More than anything, they taught me about the importance of our friends and finding our own social support networks despite (and because of) our challenging circumstances.

It’s important to note that not all children have the same social agency. Schools, community organizations, and families can help! There are wonderful interventions like S2S and online tools to connect families before, during, and after moving school communities. Some eighth-graders I spoke with felt a sense of stigma with lunch clubs, needing help making friends. We may need to get creative to lend social support to all military kids so they can form authentic, meaningful connections at school.

If we all devote time and resources to getting to know our military (and all of our) students on a deeper level, we can make a profound impact on their daily lives. We can help our military kids reflect on the kinds of friends they might like to make when transitioning schools, and we can remind them to keep an open mind, because friendships aren’t always a result of common experience, background, or interests. Sometimes, we just find a kind, welcoming voice in the crowd, and that matters.