The Expectations of Friendship

Line of Inquiry:

The expectations of friendship

Question:

Are there rules of friendship?

The children expressed their opinion to these three questions:

• Do you expect your friend to play with you?
• Do you expect your friend to help you?
• Do you expect your friend to be kind and caring?

Everyone answered yes to these questions with the exception of these responses:
"Sometimes my friend plays with me and sometimes they don't and that's okay" - Rocco
"Sometimes my friend will help me and sometimes they don't." - Simone
"I don't want help, I like to do it myself." - Alfie

Expressing an opinion

Do friends ever get mad at each other? Most of the children thought friends do not get mad at each other. The story of Matthew and Tilly illustrates how two friends can play along happily and then sometimes things go wrong and they feel angry and can even say hurtful words. I wish I had a picture of the children's faces as Tilly and Matthew yelled names like stupid, stinky and mean, all showed expressions of sadness for these characters. Sometimes friends do get mad at each other, it happens, what can be done about it? They gave ideas of what Mathew and Tilly could do next - say sorry, give hugs, give kisses.

If we expect our friend to play with us, be helpful and be kind then we have a responsibility to include our friend, to be helpful and to be kind ourselves. This is an idea we will explore further. The children made puppets of themselves and finished the sentence "I am a friend when...."
"I play with someone." (Alfie, Simone, Roy)
"I'm happy with someone" (Rocco
"I help." (Sofia)

I am a friend puppets