The Unconventional WOMAN

What do we say to our children when they tell us:
“I don’t know how to make friends!”?
I was thinking about this topic, as I got this affirmation from my preteenage daughter, and I realised that I didn’t gave her a really useful answer.
As I want to guide my kids the best way that I can, I thought of:
How does somebody that I call my friend makes me feel ? Is
He/she making me feel good , understood, loved, appreciated and/or having my qualities acknowledged?
I’ve realised that I’ve chosen my friends based on their qualities resemling mines and that I felt understood and appreciated my them, especcialy because they took the time of sharing with me the qualities they’ve acknowledged about me.
So, I figured it should be ok to help our teenager by sharing with them this one “method”:
If you are new in a group of people ( you changed school, town, adress) and you are willing to make friends, this should help:
1. Take time to get to know the members of the group. For some, it can be as little as a few days, for others, it can take longer than that. Either way is ok. Just be patient enough.
2. Be conscious that you won’t like everyone, just like not everyone is going to like you, at least at this moment in time. And it’s ok!
3. Usually, the people you like, have some common traits with you, whether you’re aware of it or not! In time, you’ll see this is true.
If you like somebody, it’s usually because of a quality you’ve noticed about him/her, that resembles to a quality / trait that you already posses or you would like to posses.
What is that quality that you’ve noticed about the person you want to be a friend of?
If you took the time to observe these persons in the group and that particular person you want to make friends with, you’ll know what that quality is.
Find a moment when that person demonstrates that quality, and say it to them. For example, if you like that a person loves animals, and this made you want to be friends with him/her, confirm to them this quality. When you see him/her playing with a little kitten, for example, bring to it’s attention that you’ve noticed how well he/she treat animals and that you admire that about them, because you also love animals. People love to feel understood and seen, therefore I believe this should be a great way of starting a friendship.
Most people display daily some positive traits, you just have to be willing to see and look for them.
Find qualities in the people around you in that group, and it should be easy for it also to find qualities in you and, as a consequence, for him/her to also want to be your friend.
4. Remember, qualities are character traits, are personal, are about what and how a person is and how he or she behaves, it’s never about what they have, it’s never about the material stuff.

LOVE U!