Friendship

What is friendship?

• Friendship is an unselfish concern for the good of another.
• Friendship is your relationship with someone you like.
• "A friend is someone who knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts who you've become, and still, gently invites you to grow."

Children who are good friends:

• Accept others for who they are
• Share their belongings
• Listen
• Enjoy others' company
• Support others in need
• Smile, laugh, and tell jokes
• Avoid teasing and put-downs
• Encourage others with kind words
• Avoid tattling
• Ask for help from their peers
• Solve problems peacefully
• Consider others' feelings before acting

Proverbs and maxims

• Look for the good in people and expect to find it.
• Friendship is the best present you can give.
• Love without friendship is like a shadow without sun. (Japanese proverb)

12 ways to start and strengthen relationships

1. Be a person of good character.
2. Be kind and caring.
3. Be loving and supportive.
4. Be a good listener.
5. Spend time together and share experiences.
6. Recognize when you have problems with others.
7. Be willing to compromise.
8. Talk about your feelings.
9. Don't play the blame game.
10. Try not to judge others.
11. Expand your circle of friends.
12. Be friendly.

Fun ways to strengthen friendships

• Make popcorn balls (or other treats) and bring them to someone new in your school.
• Have a water balloon toss (outside).
• Bring old baby pictures to class and share them.
• Fly kites.
• Start a club.
• Read a play together. Assign different parts to different friends (or ask which parts they'd like to read).
• Have a "read-a-thon" or "music-a-thon" and share your favorite books and music.
• Volunteer together for a worthwhile activity.

Other pointers to make friends

1. Friendliness starts with a simple "hello" so practice different greetings like "hi" or "how's it going."
2. Reach out to others. Join groups, organizations, and clubs. Get a pen pal. Call someone on the telephone.
3. Include others. Look for people who are left out of activities and groups and invite them to join you.
4. Make eye contact to show sincerity and interest in others.
5. Learn and remember names. When you meet someone new, repeat their name.
6. Don't focus on yourself; think of the person you are with.
7. Smile to show you enjoy a person's company.

More activities

• Write a surprise letter to someone you care about and tell how much he or she means to you.
• Read about famous people of the past to learn what kinds of relationships they had with others.
• Visit a local store that sells greeting cards and see what they say to bond friendships.
• Decide what's most important to you in a friend. You might want to do a questionnaire and rank order qualities you feel are the most to least important - family income level, honesty, intelligence, education, interest, kindness, ability to have fun, is law-abiding, loyalty, physical fitness, political beliefs, popularity, cultural background, religious beliefs, so on.
• With your class, debate the most important character trait for a friend to have.
• Survey your class to find out how long friendships last when friends are the same gender or opposite genders, when friends are the same age or different ages, and so on.
• Role-play things you can do in a new school to develop friendships.
• Switch seats in your classroom once a week for 10 minutes so everyone can get better acquainted with each other.
• Create a photography bulletin board about friendships.
• Learn about relationships among animals such as whales, bears, lions, dogs, and cats.

BOOKLIST ON FRIENDSHIP

For grades K-3

Best Friends - Kellogg

Stellaluna - Cannon

Henry and Mudge - Rylant

Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse - Lionni

Arthur's Birthday - Brown

Best Friends for Frances - Hoban

Corduroy - Freeman

The Doorbell Rang - Hutchins

Feelings - Aliki

Frog and Toad Are Friends - Lobel

George and Martha - Marshall

The Giving Tree - Silverstein

Ira Sleeps Over - Waber

The Legend of the Bluebonnet - dePaola

The Mountain That Loved a Bird - McLerran

Peter's Chair - Keats

How to Lose All Your Friends - Carlson

The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight - Berenstain

Three Wishes - Clifton

Jamaica and Brianna - Havill

Fast Friends: A Tail and Tongue Tale - Horstman

Amber on the Mountain - Johnston

It's Mine - Leonni

The Velveteen Rabbit - Williams

Amigo - Baylor

Amos and Boris - Steig

Chester's Way - Henkes

A Friend for Dragon - Pilkey

A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You - Anglund

How I Found a Friend - Hale

Making Friends - Rogers

Together - Behrens

Koko's Kitten - Patterson

Snowden - Carlson

Frog and Toad Together - Lobel

New Friends, True Friends, Stuck-Like-Glue Friends - Kroll

The Woman Who Named Things - Rylant

Poppleton and Friends - Rylant

Friends - Heine

Ada's Pal - Lyon

55 Friends - Zabar

The Adventures of Sugar and June - Medoaris

19 Girls and Me - Pattison

Fluffy and Baron - Rankin

Owen and Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship - Hatkoff

For Grades 3-6 

Pink and Say - Polacco

The Bridge to Terabithia - Paterson

The Value of Friendship: the Story of Jane Addams - Johnson

The Cay - Taylor

The Giving Tree - Silverstein

The Indian in the Cupboard - Reid Banks

Island of the Blue Dolphins - O'Dell

It's Like This, Cat - Neville

The Little House series - Wilder

The Sign of the Beaver - Speare

Soup on Ice - Peck

Anne of Green Gables - Montgomery

Belle Prater's Boy - White

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