What is a healthy friendship?
Talk with children of all ages about the characteristics of healthy friendships and the importance of choosing friends carefully. According to Dr. Colleen Hamilton, clinical psychologist at Lepage Associates in Durham, a good friendship may include the following: – Common interests. – Treating friends the way you want to be treated. – Paying attention when friends are talking. – Keeping a friend’s confidences. – Sharing with friends. – Truthfulness. – Sticking up for a friend. – Taking turns with a friend. Healthy friendships are reciprocal and mutual. In a healthy relationship, a child is neither totally dominant nor totally passive and enjoys a variety of activities with a friend. “What you want to see is that the children don’t seem overly sensitive or overly dependant, but have the friendship as a source of pleasure and are using this relationship to expand their world,” Rosenblitt says. Signs a child is developing healthy friendships include: – A child takes pleasure and pride in
