How to make friends!
I spent the day with Chuckles, horsing around…literally. At lunch we got to talking and we started chatting about making friends and about how some girls seem to make friends easily and others do not. I didn’t expect her reply.
I was wondering that myself, actually.. she said. When I was on camp I noticed that one of the girls, Sofia, had all the girls in the cabin falling over themselves to be her friend. So…on the way to trapeze when we were alone, I asked how she made so many friends and if I could have her secrets.
So here are Sofia’s secrets:
#1: Always agree with what the potential friend tells you. (Unless it’s about you and if you agree it will sound weird!)
#2: Once the potential friend is used to being agreed with, encourage the potential friend to tell you secrets about them.
#3: Most importantly: Never tell anyone anything that potential friend told you. Eventually the potential friend will realize you are trustworthy…and then you can tell them secrets about you and they won’t tell anyone because you didn’t.
#4: Then you have to share everything with them and give them things like candy. And by then you should be friends.
I asked Chuckles if she tried any of these secrets out.
Chuckles: Well… I wanted to but an important step is missing. First you have to get noticed.
Mom: Oh!
Chuckles: I had to go and sit on potential friends’ bed and it was kind of hard to get noticed. There was one girl who gave me a lot of candy and we became friends, but she wasn’t exactly “little miss popular” either.
Mom: Making friends is hard, even for grown ups.
July 19th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Making friends is VERY hard.
I think one of the tricks is to listen.
Listening is a very under-rated skill and most people appreciate when someone listens to them carefully.
Probably that’s what Sofia meant by agreeing with them.
It’s probably more, reflecting what they have said so they feel as if they have been heard.
Good luck with the friend gathering!
July 20th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
This is hilarious.
It is missing the older behavior of cruelty, winning friends by cutting down on others, thus making a small clique of the “approved of” people. I hate that part but it is very real in America with middle school girls, if not also elementary grade girls.
One way to get noticed is with material possessions and clothes, but I bet you know that already. Being homeschoolers perhaps Chuckles was not decked out in the latest trendy clothing of “right brands”?