Importance of friendship for pre-schoolers

  • Learning to make friendship with other children is an important part of developing social skills.
  • For children, preschool is one of the best places to learn and practice these skills with each other.
  • Early friendships are considered to be the building blocks for later adult relationships among neighbours and co-workers.
  • Friends help us in solving problems and letting us know through their similar experiences that we are not alone.
  • They provide emotional support and role models for coping.

You can help your child to make friends by developing following skills Ability/ abilities to:

  • Express ideas and accept the ideas of others
  • Invite others to join activities or make them feel part of the group
  • Solve conflicts
  • Pay attention to other kids
  • Offer praise and affection to other children
  • Understand how their own words and actions can make other children feel
  • Approach and greet other children
  • Tell other children things about themselves e.g., their favourite games
  • Ask other children questions about themselves
  • Invite other children to play

Few more tips to help your child make friendship

  • Play games with your child. You can model some of the friendship abilities mentioned above. This will give children ideas and practice for doing this on their own with other children.
  • Talk to your child about hurt feelings, their own and of others. This can help them to learn how their own words and actions may hurt other children.
  • Let your child play with other children.
  • Give children time and space to solve conflicts on their own. If you need to step in, help all the children to understand that they can compromise to meet some of their needs and the other children should also get some things that they want.

References

  1. Making Friends: Preschoolers and Social Development[Internet]. Available at: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52a0eb62e4b09c19d518d10f/t/57963043f7e0ab48ffd6cfc6/1469460548107/Making+Friends.pdf. Accessed on Feb 25, 2020.