Every interaction with others requires social skills, so friendly kids have a better life than those who are not friendly. Usually, they are healthier and have higher self-esteem.
Although some kids are naturally friendlier than other, social skills can be learned from a very early age. As with any other skill, the younger the child, the less they need to unlearn and the more “naturally” friendly they will be, so there is no better time to start than today.
Some time ago, some of my son’s friends came over for a music jam and had lunch with us. One of the topics of conversation was “Facebook” and Gal and I asked them how long they spent on Facebook. Most of them (except one) said about 4 hours. I asked in shock, “A week?” and they said, “No, a day”…
These were all Grade 12 students. My son had no time to breathe in his packed timetable (which is why he was not on Facebook and we were debating whether he should be or not), so how on Earth did they manage to find 4 whole hours to do anything?
Next, the conversation turned to how many friends they had on Facebook and I realized they did not distinguish between having friends and having a list of names of people they did not really know who happened to visit their profile. It was amazing how the length of the time they spend in front of the computer, not really communicating with others, reading their gestures, tone of voice or touching them, is highly connected to their lack of social skills.
If you want your kids to have friends, you must teach them the right friendship skills and provide them with many opportunities to experience and develop those skills. As a parent, there are four things you must understand:
- Telling kids what they should do or not do to have friends is not going to do the trick. Do not talk too much, just provide them with opportunities.
- Do not confuse being social and being popular. Popularity is associated with appearance, personality type and special abilities. But friendliness means being easy to play with, easy to communicate with and likable.
- Being friendly does not require having many people you call “friends”. You can be friendly even if you have 3-4 good friends that you like and they like hanging out with you.
When helping your child develop social skills, remember there are 15 skills that are important in making friends and keeping friends. You can use this list to help your children asses themselves to find out which of these skills they have already mastered and which ones they need to keep improving.
Join me next week with the first 10 skills needed to be a friendly kid.
Friendly parenting,
Ronit
This post is part of the series How to Raise Friendly Kids:
- How to Raise Friendly Kids (1): What are Friends for?
- How to Raise Friendly Kids (2): Me and you together
- How to Raise Friendly Kids (3): Friends are forever
- Teach Your Kids How to Network
