Making and keeping friends is an important part of your child’s development.

Strong friendships allow children to grow into well-adjusted adults with strong social skills.

Help your child make friends

Friendships are usually made between people who have the same interests. Making friends can take time.

Some children find it easy to make friends. Others find it difficult. You know your child best.

If you know your child is nervous or shy when making friends, you can encourage them to:

• say hello and smile
• look for another child who seems shy and talk to them
• ask questions to start a conversation, like what school did you go to last year or do you like maths, music, running?
• listen to other children when they are talking and find out if they have things in common.

You can also support your child’s interests and get them involved in clubs or groups. This means they can make friends with children outside of school too.

Help your child work through arguments

Sometimes your child will argue with their friends, arguments are an important part of growing up. 

To support your child during these times talk to your child about:

• what things they like to do with their friends
• the things they like about their friends
• the ways your child could show their friends how much they mean to them
• how their friendships are going. If there are problems this gives your child a chance to talk to you about them.

Listen to your child and use questions that can't be answered with a simple yes or no;

can you tell me more about that?

how did that make you feel?

what mistakes did you make during the argument?

what solution can you see to this problem?

The quality of friends that your child has is important, not the number. Whether your child has one special friend or many friends isn’t the issue. Developing the social skills necessary to make and keep friends is particularly important.

Caz Perryman

Assistant Principal

REMINDERS FOR THE END OF THE TERM

• Student reports will come home today. Please be mindful that the intended audience of school reports are adults. The way to discuss your child’s achievements is important and may require you to consider what language would best help your child celebrate their efforts and next steps.
• Parent, teacher, student conferences will be next week. Please log onto https://www.schoolinterviews.com.au, click on make a booking, , enter the code x33hf and follow the prompts.
•  Please ensure all absences are explained by Friday 3 June. This can be done via, email a written note or skoolbag.
•  Remaining lost property contents will be donated at the end of the term, please collect what belongs to your families.