In teaching young children on how to make friends, I teach a little song of truth: “Make new friends but keep the old; one is silver, and the other is gold.” When young children begin to discover the joy of friendship their world opens up to new relationships and socialization skills.

A lot of this depends on the age of your child. When your children are really young and are having difficulty making friends with others, you as a parent can role-play with your child. As a teacher I love to participate in the activity centers’ play with the children I teach. Being patient and letting them do a “pretend meal” for you or even playing dolls or teddy bears with them teaches them how to interact with others.

Listen closely to your child on children they may like to play with at school or preschool. With young children, in teaching them social interaction and how to relate to other children, start with one or two children your child might  like to play with. Check with these children’s parents and invite them over to play.

When inviting friends over, it is wise to plan activities such as going to the park, playing games outside or inside, viewing a favorite video, and enjoying a favorite snack together.  Young children  are happy with  the simple things. The main issue you are focusing on is having your young children to get along.

With very young children it is necessary for parents to quietly oversee the play of young friends, especially if it is their first time to play. As a parent, you don’t want to dominate or control their play but you mainly want to facilitate their play. Young children depend on routine and familiar activities. Try to do this in planning activities when a child comes over. Children perform and play well together when they know the routine and guidelines. In an early-childhood classroom, children depend and adhere to a schedule. Many of us as parents have to be playmates in modeling how friends get along. Teachers and early-childcare workers do this with young children all the time. This allows us to oversee to see where struggles might be and then we can guide and help our children.

Children consider their pets to be their friends.  They play for hours with their furry friends such as dogs, cats, hamsters, etc.  Taking care of goldfish by feeding them and cleaning out their bowls helps to instill a sense of care and responsibility. Guiding children on how to take care of pets develops a sense of responsibility that is necessary in friendships.

With young children, remember, play is their work even in friendships. One important truth to teach young children is that they are very special — and so are their friends.

A treasured friendship for all of us — young or old — is like a rainbow promise.  Isn’t it nice to be unconditionally loved by a friend?  It’s better than a pot of gold!

Beth Pinyerd serves as younger children’s director at Faith Family Fellowship in Spanish Fort.