Making friends

Build social confidence with the proven S.A.S.H. role-play approach.        

You'll Need

  • none

Time

10 minutes

The prospect of meeting new people and needing to make new friends can be daunting for many children (not to mention adults). You can help children feel more self-confident in such situations by talking with them about specific friend-making strategies. Teach the acronym S.A.S.H., which stands for smile, ask, share, and help.

Talk about the sorts of questions your child could ask in order to "break the ice." Have your child think about ways that he or she might be able to share with or help others. Then let your child practice his or her friend-making strategies on you. Act out the role of a new child without friends. What will your child do to befriend you? You can also encourage your child to role-play friend-making scenarios using action figures, stuffed animals or dolls. This gives your child an opportunity for working on social skills in a low-stress situation, so that making friends will feel more easy and familiar when the stakes are higher.