Green Child Magazine Back-to-School 2012 | Page 12

Helping Y
our
Child

Make Friends

By Julia Cook

To a child, having just one good friend can make a huge difference in how they adjust to the new
school year. It’s truly not the quantity of friends that matters… it’s the quality. You can help
your children become better at making and keeping friends by teaching them three basic friendship social skills:
• How to break the ice with kids they haven’t met before.
• How to act positively with others.
• How to manage conflict constructively.
To teach these skills to a child, focus on how he already makes friends. Specific needs vary from
child to child and situation to situation. Here are a few tips:
1. Observe your child objectively in social settings and compare his/her actions to those
of well-liked children.
2. Isolate the skill(s) that your child needs to
work on. For example, does she continually interrupt others, or always try to “be
the boss?” Does he act aggressively toward
other children, or cry or pout when things
don’t go his way? Is your child excessively
shy and quiet, reluctant to join a group, or
afraid to try new activities?
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3. Explain the needed skill to her in detail.

Relate the skill to their world-view by attaching it to a personal experience (i.e.
when I was your age….) Demonstrate how
to effectively use the skill by role-playing.
4. Set up a safe, critical free, environment that
allows your child to practice the skill.
5. Give constructive feedback – always start
by telling her what she is doing right. Remember to teach…not criticize. (You will
always get more bees with honey, than you
will with vinegar.)