Having good friends who love and support you, just as you are, is really important for your happiness. Learning about what qualities and characteristics make a healthy friendship can help you find good friends, and help you to be a good friend too.

LINKS TO THE CURRICULUM:

PD3-3: Evaluates the impact of empathy, inclusion and respect on themselves and others
PD3-9: Applies and adapts self-management skills to respond to personal and group situations
PD3-10: Selects and uses interpersonal skills to interact respectfully with others to promote inclusion and build connections

Healthy and Unhealthy Friendships

Knowing and understanding the characteristics of a good relationship can help you choose and maintain friendships that can support your wellbeing, keeping you safe and happy.

Click on the image to download the sheet. Read the following statements that contrast healthy and unhealthy friendships and complete the 4 activities.

Rate the statements from 1 -12, (in the orange circles), 1 being the statement you think is most important for a healthy friendship. Discuss your choices with your friends or family.
Reflect on your role as a friend. In what ways are you a healthy friend? In what ways are you an unhealthy friend? What things do you need to work on? Remember, you need to be a good friend to have a good friend.
Think about your closest friends and other people you know. Review the healthy and unhealthy friendship statements. As you read them, whose name do you recall for each statement?
Read the statements to your parent or trusted adult. Ask them to reflect on their own experiences of healthy and unhealthy friendships in response to the statements. What advice would they give about healthy friendships?

The ABC of Friendship

There are many different poems written about Friendships. Some examples are:

The ABCs of the Importance of Friendship (You can sign up for Story Jumper for free.)
You'll always be my Friend - The ABC of Friendship

Create your own poem about the ABCs of Healthy Friendships, identifying and explaining characteristics of healthy friendships. Use the examples provided or design your own format.

LINKS TO THE CURRICULUM:

PD3-3: Evaluates the impact of empathy, inclusion and respect on themselves and others

LINKS TO THE CURRICULUM:

PD3-1: Identifies and applies strengths and strategies to manage life changes and transitions
PD3-3: Evaluates the impact of empathy, inclusion and respect on themselves and others
PD3-9: Applies and adapts self-management skills to respond to personal and group situations
PD3-10: Selects and uses interpersonal skills to interact respectfully with others to promote inclusion and build connections

Healthy Friendship Chatterbox

How you look after yourself and how you behave towards other people gives them clues as to how you expect them to behave towards you. If you feel good about yourself and respect yourself, and you treat others with respect, you are modelling to people how you would like to be treated. At times, you might not feel respected and therefore it is important that you communicate your feelings to your friends so that the things that are causing issues can be addressed and resolved.

Click here or on the image to download the Healthy Friendship Chatterbox. Read the friendship dilemmas which show unhealthy behaviour. Share the conversation you would have with your friend to try and provide some safe, healthy resolutions for each scenario.

Alternatively, you can use the template of a Chatterbox, to write down some of your own friendship dilemmas. An example is:

You are beginning to notice that when you are in a group of people your friend often says things about you that put you down. Even though it is said with a laugh, it upsets you and makes you feel embarrassed. What conversation you would have with your friend about this?

Healthy Friendship Slogans and Posters

Slogans are clever and captivating statements that highlight, advertise and/or educate the reader about a certain theme or topic. They should be short, striking and/or memorable phrases that grab the attention of the reader.

You can click here or here to download a Healthy Friendship Fact Sheet to remind you of what makes a Healthy Friendships

Create some slogans to promote Healthy Friendship Week and design posters to put up around the school or your home.

For example:

Listen and learn...and take your turn!
If you can be you...the friendship is true!
If they keep pulling rank...the friendship will tank!

(See image for more examples.)

Top 10 Famous Healthy Friendships of all Time

Think about 10 different famous friendships. They can be friendships from movies or books. Find images of the friends, then clearly state the qualities and characteristics that justify why you think this friendship is healthy and should be included in the Top 10 Famous Friendships of all Time.

Challenge: Can you identify a famous friendship that is unhealthy? Can you justify the reasons for your choice?

LINKS TO THE CURRICULUM:

PD3-3: Evaluates the impact of empathy, inclusion and respect on themselves and others