Caulfield Primary School Newsletter
Banner Photo

Wellbeing

Friendship Problems: Helping Children Learn to Navigate the Ups and Downs

 

Friendships are an important part of primary school life. They give children a sense of belonging and provide opportunities to learn skills such as sharing, negotiating, communicating, managing emotions and resolving conflict.

 

Of course, friendships don't always run smoothly! Children might disagree about the rules of a game, feel left out, become frustrated with a friend or hear an upsetting comment. While these experiences can be difficult, everyday friendship problems are also valuable opportunities for children to develop their social skills and resilience. Disagreements between friends are common in primary school, and children will often be able to resolve them with some support and coaching from adults.

 

Coach rather than fix

 

When a child comes home upset about something that happened with a friend, our natural instinct can be to immediately solve the problem for them. Instead, where it is safe to do so, we can help children develop the skills to work through the problem themselves.

 

Some useful questions might be:

  • What happened?
  • How did that make you feel?
  • How do you think the other person might have felt?
  • What could you try tomorrow?
  • What could you say to them?
  • Who could you ask for help if that doesn't work?

 

Adults can also role-play situations with children, helping them practise things like asking to join a game, telling someone to stop, apologising, compromising or finding someone else to play with.

 

The goal isn't for children to manage every problem independently. Rather, it is to gradually build their confidence to have a go at solving manageable problems while knowing that trusted adults are available when they need help.

 

When adults need to step in

 

There is an important difference between an everyday friendship conflict and bullying.

 

The Victorian Department of Education writes that the three main features of bullying are:

  • the misuse of power in a relationship
  • it is ongoing and repeated
  • it involves behaviours that can cause harm.

 

A disagreement between children of relatively equal power, a single unkind incident or social rejection is not necessarily bullying, although these situations still need appropriate support.

 

Children should always be encouraged to seek adult help when they feel unsafe, someone is being hurt, the behaviour keeps happening, they have tried to solve the problem and it isn't working, or they simply don't feel able to manage the situation themselves.

 

By listening, coaching and stepping in when needed, families and schools can work together to help children develop the skills they need to build positive relationships and navigate the inevitable ups and downs of friendship.

 

Further reading for families