Making New Friends
Hello Again, Friends, and welcome back to the counseling blog! As we begin this school year, we are focused on helping children feel comfortable and safe in their new classroom. Perhaps your child, like my son, didn't get any of their friends from last year in their class, and they might be feeling sad, lonely or alone. How can we help them identify those feelings, validate them, and still help them to be happy? Well, one solution is to help them discover that they have great things to offer and they can make new friends! Even though not knowing any of their friends from last year may seem like small problem to you, it's a big deal to a child. During the elementary school years, children really build their identity on who their friends are, and those alliances are important! We have to help guide our children to understand that while their friendships are by no means "over" because they aren't in the same class ( there's always recess!), it is important to m