Friends for Life: Teaching Kids to Build and Maintain Meaningful Friendships
When my daughter came home from her first week of middle school, she sat at the kitchen table with her head in her hands and said, “I don’t know how to make friends in a place where everyone already knows each other.” It wasn’t the first time she’d felt socially lost, but it was the first time she had the tools to do something about it. Over the next two weeks, we practiced the friendship skills she’d been learning since she was six: how to start a conversation, how to show genuine interest, how to handle rejection gracefully, and how to be the kind of friend she wanted to have. By the end of the month, she had three solid friendships and, more importantly, the confidence that she could build connections wherever she went. ...