The arts school my sons attended had what is, in this day and age, a fairly uncommon situation for a public school. Most of the students were together for nine years, from the age of 9 to 18. That’s a big chunk of time and includes some critical years of development. Not only were the children together for nine years…the parents were together for nine years. Considering these circumstances, the issue of friendship took on a new level of significance. We were part of a fairly small, stable community…not unlike a family. There was the potential for creating friendships that could last a lifetime…friendships that crossed art disciplines, grade levels, homerooms, and gender.
I recall a conversation I had with my older son when he was about six-years-old. I asked him what he looked for in a friend. He said, “Somebody you can talk to. Somebody you can hang around with who doesn’t want to see you get in trouble. Somebody who really likes you and just wants to be with you. They try to make you feel better if you get hurt or if you’re sad.”
“What do you do to be a friend?” I asked. “I just told you,” he replied.
“So what you’re saying is that to have a friend you have to be a friend?” I checked.
“Right,” he confirmed.
In the words of Douglas Pagels, “A friend is one of the nicest things you can have and one of the best things you can be.” This quote expresses an appreciation for the reciprocal nature of friendship.
The arts’ school principal offered this wisdom from her years of accumulated teaching experience:
“First, choose your friends well. They will be important to you. Well-selected friends foster your ambitions, dreams, and individuality. Similarly, your friends should help you grow and develop in positive ways. The Oxford American Dictionary defines a friend as a person who is a supporter, someone who uses his/her influence for another’s benefit. If your friends do not fit these characteristics, start cultivating new ones.”
With the advent of electronic communication, I am afraid the focus is on quantity rather than quality when it comes to friendship. I am amused when I hear people talk about twittering 500 friends. They demonstrate a lack of understanding of the meaning of genuine friendship. Most people are lucky if they have a handful of true friends during their entire life. And if they can count their spouse among those, they are doubly blessed.
Friendship is one of those things, like marriage and parenting, that we take for granted people automatically know how to do because it is just natural, genetic, innate. Well, Hogwash! The ability to be a friend, to make and keep friends, is learned. Guess where we learn it. From our very first teachers. That’s right. Parents!
Our job is to teach our kids how to establish, build, and maintain healthy relationships, how to resolve the inevitable conflicts that arise in positive ways, how to recognize when a relationship is becoming destructive, and how to get help. We all want our kids to be and have friends. Here are some suggestions for how to increase the likelihood that they will be healthy, long-lasting, life-enhancing relationships:
Provide healthy models for friendship. Monitor the examples of relationships to which they are being exposed, ie. movies, television, literature, and peers. Point out those that exhibit unhealthy characteristics and challenge them to identify what makes them problematic. Discuss what should occur.
Talk openly and often about friendship. Explore their understanding of what it means to be a friend and how they know someone is a friend. Correct any misperceptions. Ask about their friends and how they spend time together. Share memories of the kinds of things you did with friends at their age.
Define and discuss empathy. Empathy is fundamental to any healthy relationship. Share examples from your own experience. Point out opportunities for them to be empathetic. Notice and express appreciation when they exhibit empathy. Be sure they know what it is, how to demonstrate it and recognize it.
Emphasize the importance of balance. Being a good communicator is essential to friendship, which means being a good listener as well as a good speaker. Creating an equality of give and take in the relationship is crucial.
Teach effective conflict resolution skills. Conflict is inevitable even between the best of friends. No two people are going to agree all the time. When problems arise between friends, they talk to each other, not about each other. They seek win-win solutions.
Provide guidance in how to respond to peer pressure. Real friends do not pressure one another to exhibit inappropriate behavior. They do not encourage participation in risky, dangerous activities. Make sure they know how to recognize trouble and leave gracefully.
Distinguish between tattling and seeking help. Tattling is usually intended to get someone else in trouble while making oneself look good. Seeking help is intended to protect someone from being hurt, either physically or emotionally, or to prevent some type of damage. Friends know the difference.
Genuine friendship, like anything that is worthwhile and enriches our lives, takes an incredible commitment of time, energy, patience, understanding, devotion, respect, trust, and empathy. And all of these have to be mutual. We never know the impact a friend may have on our life and vice versa. Real friends want one another to be their best, but forgive one another when they fall short.
