How can I make a friend?

This story is part of our Equality, Responsibility and Friendship (ERF) project, the other story in this project is our story called 'How do I see you?' which you can find a link to under our 'Related Stories' section.

In this story, the animals of Farmyard Primary are talking about the qualities needed to be a good friend.

Aims of this story

'How can I make a friend?' which is about the qualities of friendship. We will use this story to further help us about understanding our responsibilities to treat everyone with equitability (fairness), so that children have an understanding around the benefits of positive behaviours; in this case making and maintaining positive relationships and friendships.

Key Messages

Understand different responsibilities in maintaining a friendship
Understand the importance of trust in a friendship
Be able to develop empathy in a friendship
Explore some of the qualities of being a good friend
Understand some of the boundaries in friendships
Help develop critical decision making for who to trust
Promote that children should always tell an adult they know they can trust, if they are worried or scared

Explain to your child:

Meeting new people and making new friends is a great thing to do. At first, it can sometimes feel a bit tricky or awkward to get talking with new friends, and this is very natural for us to not feel comfortable with people we don’t yet know – this is a good thing while we work out if we like them or feel safe around them.

Ask your child what might be some of the reasons they find it hard to make friends with new children they meet?

Useful suggestions could be:

Feel shy
Difficult to know how to start a conversation
Lack of things in common with each other
Just don’t get along with each other for some reason
They don’t want to be friends with us
Don’t like the look of each other (initial impressions based on pre-conceived ideas of what people will be like based on how they look or who they are e.g. a girl, boy etc.)

Talk to your child:

Ask your child and discuss any positive examples of how they made a new friend in the past/recently.

Ask them to think about how this happened, how they behaved and what they said or did. This will help them get an idea of the kind of things that are needed to make a friend.

Tell your child:

Now you want them to have a go at writing down their own top three ideas for the best ways to make a friend. These should be their own ideas, and they could be from ways they have used before, or ways that they think might work in the future.

There’s also extra space at the bottom of the worksheet if they want to add in any other tips or useful ideas on how to make a friend.

Activity: Best ways to make a friend

Download