PB4L: Ngākau Aroha
In week 3 & 4 we will be looking at the attributes of What makes you a Good Friend?
Recently, I read a great article on helping children make and keep friends, by Gwen Dewar, PhD (2020).
She explains that building a friendship depends on a child's emotional skills, self-regulation skills, and social competence. And parents can play an important role in the development of these abilities.
Just about every child will benefit from coaching and practice in the social arts. Friendship depends on the same, fundamental skills. To be successful, kids must:
- regulate their own, negative emotions;
- understand other people's emotions and perspectives;
- show sympathy, and offer help to friends in need;
- feel secure and trusting of other people;
- know how to handle introductions, and participate in conversation;
- be capable of cooperation, negotiation, and compromise;
- know how to apologise, and make amends; and
- be understanding (and forgiving) of other people's mistakes.
At Lyttelton School we teach a lot of these things through our various Values Lessons throughout the year. But for the next couple of weeks we will be looking at these a little more closely, honing the skills required for making and keeping successful friendships. This Sparklers activity 'Being a First Rate Mate!' has great activities you could do at home with your child/children.
Dewar says her research and evidence shows that children are more likely to develop strong self-regulation skills if they had grown up with a parent who talked with them, sympathetically and constructively, about how to cope with bad moods and difficult feelings. And the stronger a child's self-regulation skills, the more likely that child was to develop positive peer relationships as he or she got older. This article on the Sparklers website 'How to help kids manage worries' has useful information for whānau.
On the flip side, studies suggest that kids develop weaker self-regulation skills when their parents react dismissively ("You're just being silly!") or punitively ("Go to your room!") to their children's negative emotions.
Children also need to do more than control their own, negative emotions. They also need to understand the emotions and perspectives of others. And to do this, Dewar says children need to learn how to listen well. And they need to learn how to provide conversational feedback - to show that they understand what another person is expressing. At school, we foster oral language skills in many ways. But at home you can help by modelling good communication skills and engaging your children in reciprocal conversations. At school, our students have benefited from the art of "active listening." This is when a person makes it clear that he or she is paying attention by making appropriate eye contact, orienting the body in the direction of the speaker, remaining quiet, and making relevant verbal responses.
Studies suggest that kids get along better when they are engaged in cooperative activities - activities in which they work toward a common goal. This is true in the classroom, and it's also true when children play. So if children are struggling socially, it's probably a good idea to steer them away from competitive games, at least until they develop better social skills.
To build positive relationships with peers, children also need to be able to think of peaceful ways to resolve conflicts. They need to be able to understand what other people need and want (ngākau aroha/ empathy); and they must be capable of anticipating the consequences of various actions. At Lyttelton Primary we teach various ways of doing this, and these will be re-iterated again over the next two weeks.
For more information, or to read the article, go to: