How to Encourage Friendships Between Children

By age five and six, young children are beginning to understand the fundamentals of being a friend and establishing relationships. As school-aged children become more curious about their peers, you can follow these steps to help encourage those friendships.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Stand back and let your child make her own friends. While it may seem counterintuitive not to be involved in your child's social life, she is actually at a point in her development when her sense of self is strong and growing. Allowing her to linger in the sidelines or actively participate, without interference from you, will give her the much-needed confidence to make friends.
2. Let your child reconcile an argument on her own. While you should always observe an argument and step in between friends if things get too heated, allowing them to "work it out" encourages problem-solving skills and can lead to deeper and more meaningful friendships.
3. Help your child to make many friends, as there is little consistency to how she will feel toward a particular friend from one day to the next. Host a play date at your house to encourage safe play. Invite one friend at a time, but be sure that your child has a few friends with whom she likes to play.
4. Foster friendships at school by discussing with your child ways in which she can be nice to others. For example, prepare a snack your child can share with her classmates or ask your child to invite a new friend to sit with her during lunch.