Wellbeing

SWPBS - Well Done Dhulin

Congratulations to all our DHULIN  students who today received their end-of-term School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support House Token reward!  YUM! 

Social Emotional Learning - Friendology

What are the Friend-o-meter and the Friend-o-cyle?!

The Friend-o-Meter uses colours (like a traffic light) to show how healthy or unhealthy a friendship situation might feel:

• Green Zone – happy, safe, included
• Yellow Zone – unsure, uncomfortable, a bit worried
• Red Zone – upset, hurt, excluded

Students can use the visual to help them rate how they are feeling about a friendship. Rating their feelings gives them the opportunity to make a plan if they need to fix a friendship fire or feel confident that their friendship is healthy.

It also helps students understand how someone else is feeling. This includes noticing body language;things like facial expressions, posture, and whether someone is looking down or withdrawn. 

An important part of this learning is recognising that we don’t always have the full picture. For example, if a group is talking and laughing, it might look like they are being unkind—but what if they are actually saying something kind? Even then, the person being talked about might still feel upset if they think it’s negative. This helps children understand that:

• Intentions and impact can be different
• People’s feelings are shaped by what they perceive, not just what is said

How you can support this at home:

• Ask your child to reflect on their day using the Friend-o-Meter language (“What was a green moment today?”)
• Talk about how they can tell how others are feeling (e.g. “What did their face or body look like?”)
• Discuss how misunderstandings can happen and why it’s important to check in or be kind with words and actions

By using the Friend-o-Meter, we are helping students build empathy, strengthen friendships, and become more thoughtful communicators.

The Friend-o-cycle is a visual that supports students to work through friendship challenges and get back to a healthy friendship. When learning about this, we explicitly teach each stage.

• Healthy Friendship: This is when a friendship is awesome and in the Green zone of the Friend-o-meter. Where we want our friendships to be.
• Friendship Fire: A situation between you and a friend that results in negative feelings. This may be felt by both people in the friendship or by only one person.
• Confront the Issue: Instead of ignoring it and letting it burn, we face the Fire. Research shows that trying to ignore negative feelings actually makes them feel bigger; this is where resentment comes from. 
• Talk-It-Out: When the time is right, you retell the situation and explain how you feel. Each taking turns to explain how it made you feel.

• Forgive and Forget: When we have done a good job of putting out the fire our friendship can return to the green zone. One reason kids sometimes struggle getting to this phase is that they don’t understand what forgiveness really means. Ask them, “When I cover up the words ‘for’ on forgive and forget, what am I left with?” Help them to see that we give a bit to get a lot in our friendships. 
• Closer and Stronger: We learn something about our friendship when we work through challenges, and the roots of our friendship get stronger. It can improve our trust and respect for each other.
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How you can support this at home:

• Notice the good times – Talk about when friendships feel happy and easy (Green Zone).
• Name the problem – Help your child recognise when a “Friendship Fire” has happened.
• Encourage facing it – Remind them that ignoring problems can make feelings bigger.
• Practise talking it out – Support them to calmly explain how they feel and listen to others.
• Teach forgiveness – Help them understand that forgiving helps friendships move forward.
• Focus on growth – Remind them that working through problems can strengthen friendships.

For further information, please sign up for the FREE parent membership on URSTRONG: Friendology!