By LaToya Dawkins

I know a woman who battled with friendships her entire life but I remember the day that she realized the solution of her struggle, “In order to have a friend, you have to be a friend.” Friendships are solid relationships where those involved benefit from the constant exchange of communication, empathy, and love. In life, it is easy to gain a friend but twice as easy to lose a one. It is important that our preschoolers develop skills that will help them make friends and not enemies with their peers. Friendships will help them grow as individuals and teach them healthy boundaries and acceptable societal practices in their relationships.

As an educator, I have noticed that some of the most valuable skills a child can develop are communication skills. Not only do these skills help them relate and connect to the world around them, it also helps them manage their relationships. These days, their relationships are more complex than a simple mommy-child relationship. They have nanny-child, peer-peer, teacher-child, and other variegated relationships. In these assorted relationships they must learn how to communicate in a respectable way. In my classroom, harsh comments towards anyone are intolerable but expressing feelings or opinions calmly and rationally are strongly encouraged.

We all have heard the saying, “Sharing is caring.” For preschoolers, this saying sheds light on their daily interactions with other children. A NYU developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst explains, “Self-centeredness is a natural outgrowth of one of the toddler's major concerns: What is me and what is mine...? This is why most toddlers are incapable of sharing ... To a toddler, what's his is what he can get his hands on.... When something is taken away from him, he feels as though a piece of him—an integral piece—is being torn from him.” Therefore sharing is also a learned skill. Repetitively, I explain to my preschoolers that sharing our things allows us to share our happiness with others and I remind them how good they feel when someone shares with them. In situations where they refuse, I often give them a choice. Either they share or I will help them share (i.e. give their friend a piece of their play dough). They need to understand that sometimes sharing is not optional (i.e. moving over to allow someone to sit down next to them during circle time).

As adults, our relationships thrive on communication; however, empathy is what shapes our deeper relationships. Empathy is not a learned skill because we cannot teach our preschoolers to be vicariously and intellectually involved with their peers feelings or thoughts. Nevertheless, we can show them how to be sensitive towards others. For example, when a child is crying because they have been hurt, I will address the sadness and pain to the other children. They often will respond about a time when they were hurt, which in adult relationships would be a selfish thing to do; however, it is the beginning stages of them relating to someone else’s pain. The ancient Greek tragedian, Sophocles, quoted, “One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession”.

This spring, help your child blossom in their relationships.  Through your love, empathy, and compassion, show them how to make friends and not enemies.

Quotes were taken from http://quotes.dictionary.com