Importance of Friendship for Children

It is important for parents to teach their children about friendship and what it takes to be a good friend in order to have a good friend. This is because all children need friends to learn how to cope with different situations that come up in life, to grow up happy, and emotionally stable. By hanging out with their friends children can learn how to get along with other people, lead and follow instructions. They learn to control their actions, be competitive, supportive and have fun. However it is up to the parents to teach their children how to be a good friend and to support their friends when something goes wrong. It is up to the parents to set the example that their children learn from and to control the environment in which they will learn from.Parents just need to remember that children are constantly learning from the environment they live in, even as small babies. They are sort of like parrots that mimic people by picking up on every sound or sight they hear or see in the environment that they are surrounded by. However, children have a larger environment to learn from than parrots do, whether it be at home, school or just watching TV. They are constantly watching and listening to everything going on around them and learning to mimic those words or actions in everyday life. Your kids are always watching you and taking cues from you as to how to treat others and how to handle situations in life. No Pressure, but you are being watched!The problem is once a child learns a bad habit it is very difficult to break. This is why it is so important for parents to teach their children about the importance of friendship and how to deal with different situations so they do not pick up on the bad habits of others. They need to remember that if they don’t learn it at home they will learn it somewhere else. When parents fight constantly in front of their children they are teaching them that this is how they should deal with adversaries or difficult situations in life. When children watch TV with a lot of violence they learn that this is acceptable behavior and how they should solve their problems.Which is why it is so important that parents take an active role in their children’s lives by controlling the programs they allow their children to watch. When the parents encourage their children by talking to them so they can teach the children various types of coping skills that can be shared with their own friends. When the parents help out a friend that has a problem and encourage them through difficult times they teach their children that this is the right thing to do in order to be a good friend.

Parents just need to remember that they are the most important role model that their children can have. That when they set a positive example they are teaching their children that these are the things they should also be doing and learning. This in turn helps teach the friends of their children good habits because they learn from each other and by the examples that surround them.