Date: 2/20/2023
How Friendship Can Enrich a Child’s Life
Estimated reading time: 1 min 55 sec
How friendship can enrich a child’s life: Humans have an inherent need to interact with other humans. These interactions with others help us to associate with what is happening in the world around us. It helps us put events in context. It helps us solve problems. And it supports us when we’re experiencing a challenge. Though many would say that the need for human interaction lessens as we age, without a doubt, human interaction and friendships, in particular, are vital for kids.
Why good friends and positive role models enrich a child's life
Though we’re going to focus more here on the need for friends, it is essential to understand that kids also need positive role models. When a child has a role model to look up to, it can help them develop and emulate the same positive traits that they see in that person. If they see kindness, they are likelier to express it to others. If they see a strong work ethic, they’re more likely to want to work hard to create a thriving well-being.
Conversely, when kids are presented with negative role models, they can emulate those same behaviors. If they see a bully being a bully, they’re more likely to be a bully too. And the list goes on and on. But this is also where the importance of positive friendships comes into play. While kids need strong adult role models to model their behaviors after, they need kids at their level, on the same playing field, to interact with and grow.
Friendships do enrich a child's life
When your child has a good friend, it encourages positivity, love, and warmth. Not only that, but when your child has friends, they’ll experience the following benefits:
- Increases their sense of belonging and purpose and helps them build self-confidence
- Boosts their happiness (and their smiles and happiness can be infectious to others)
- Helps them cope with trauma and challenging situations (in fact, a group of good friends together can easily intimidate a bully, keeping the bully from bothering them ever again) – after all, there is indeed strength in numbers
- Encourages your child to adopt healthy habits and a good-natured lifestyle
The benefits that kids experience when they have friends is truly endless. If your child is struggling to make friends or isn’t exposed to enough kids to build those rewarding relationships, seek opportunities where your child can interact with kids their own age. Some examples include the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts, club sports like soccer or lacrosse, and even youth groups at your local church.
Helping your child by exposing them to other kids can help them make new friends and develop an overall healthier well-being.