“Friends are the siblings God never gave us.” – Mencius
Friends are an important part of our life. A person’s life is most often influenced by the friends he/she is surrounded with, rather than their family. Before school days, they might be spending most of their time at home. But once they start attending a school or start going to college, friends are the companions they spend a large part of their daily life with. So, your children need to have the skills and sense to make good friends who will help guide them and be loyal companions through their journey of life. What better time than the school holidays to guide them on how to select and make their friends?
How do friends influence your child?
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Friends make you feel special
Being a part of a friendship circle can help deal with social situations and develop self-esteem.
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Friends inspire you to grow
If your child has friends who are talented and competitive, it can motivate your child to work hard to reach greater heights.
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Better companionship
Children often do not feel like talking to adults because adults cannot relate to their problems or understand their situations. Friends are their outlets. People who have strong friendship connections are less likely to be affected by depression or similar mental issues.
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The other side of the picture
Choosing the wrong friends can do you damage beyond what you can imagine. Surrendering to peer pressure is how most children first get to try out drugs, alcohol, or other substances. Being in toxic friend circles can cause your children to act out and even neglect their studies.
How to help your children make good friends?
Help improve their communication skills
Making friends requires your children to have good communication skills. It takes some skill to easily make and maintain friendships. The effort is required to do so. Teaching your children how to interact socially and make their point across conversations can help your children seem more friendly and open to communication. It can help them seem more friendly and open. Children would feel like approaching them and interacting with them.
Allow them to hang out with their friends
You can’t expect your children to have friends and maintain good relations if you keep them at home and don’t let them out. Children must spend time with their friends outside of school hours too. Allow them to go out and play with their friends and hang out in safe places.
Teach your children what to look out for in friends
Making friends is important. But even more important is making good friends. Make sure your children know what sort of behaviour is appropriate and what red flags to look out for when they are making new friends and interacting with their other friends. The company one keeps can influence one’s behaviour more than anything else. So, try to make sure the friends your child makes, even if they are few, are good people.
Let them hang out at your house or offer to take them to their friend’s place
Host your children and their friends and also take them over to their friends’ houses when they ask. Encourage them to have stay-overs and picnics. These can help improve the bond between children and parents. This can also help to foster good relations.
Try to understand your child’s personality
Making friends and developing social interaction skills will vary from person to person. When helping your children make friends, try to understand their personality first. Identify their strengths and weaknesses and try to make use of them to help your children improve their friend-making skills. If your children are less open and introverted, it might require more effort on your part to help them make friends as compared to others. So, understanding your children’s personalities is vital to helping them in this regard.
Practice at home
Help your children practice at home how to ask others to be their friends. The first time asking someone to be their friend can be nerve-wracking for children. You can try role-playing and enacting how your children would ask someone to be their friend. Such practice can help calm them and get familiar with the feeling. It can also help them build good communication skills.
Try positive reinforcement
When your child succeeds in making new friends or puts in the effort to do so, encourage and praise them. It can help build self-confidence and optimism in children.
Don’t compare or overly criticise your children
Constant comparison with other children and over criticism can hamper your child’s confidence and self-image. It can cause them to develop inferiority complexes and also negative self-images. If your children don’t like themselves, it can be hard for them to get others to like them as well. People who lack confidence and are withdrawn don’t make many friends. So, try to be more encouraging and be less critical.
Teach your children to be kind and non-judgemental.
Teach your children to treat everyone with empathy and kindness. Being non-judgemental will also help your children be loved and seen as friendship worthy to others. Make sure your children understand this and keep to it. Also, encourage them to reach out to children who seem like they are lonely or feel like they are too shy to ask to be included in any friend groups.
We hope these tips help your children in finding their right companions. All the best! 🙂
Exam Smart Tips
Exam Smart Tip #1 – How to Encourage Our Kids to Speak Better?
Exam Smart Tip #2 – How to avoid carelessness?
Exam Smart Tip #3 – Establishing Routines!
Exam Smart Tip #4 – Let’s Read Carefully!
Exam Smart Tip #5 – Beating the Exam Fever!
Exam Smart Tip #6 – How to Eat Right for the Exams?
Exam Smart Tip #7 – How to Avoid a Meltdown?
Exam Smart Tip #8 – Taking Stress out of Tests
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