Welcome back to another episode of Silent Superheroes,
Where we're learning to get real-world superpowers that will help us to be happier,
Healthier and have so much more fun.
Today we're going to be learning about making friends.
How can we use the power of silence and calm breathing to make sure that we make friends and have a great time with our friends?
Well,
The first thing to know is that we can only really make friends when we're calm,
When we're happy,
When we're in a good mood.
Because if we're yelling or crying or screaming,
Other people might not want to be around us.
Because think about it,
You don't want to be around them when they're yelling or screaming or crying.
It's a little bit too loud,
Isn't it?
So let's take a big slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth and we'll get ourselves calm.
Are you ready?
Great work.
Now if you find yourself feeling a bit upset or angry or yelly or sad or not sure what to do,
Just take a big slow calm breath in through the nose and out through the mouth and you'll start feeling so much better.
Let's do it one more right now.
Okay,
So the first step to making friends is to be super calm and super in control of our minds and we do that by calm breathing.
But then what do we do?
Let's imagine we've gone to our park,
We've gone for a little walk or a little drive with our parents or with our school or with our carers and we've found ourselves at the park but we don't know anyone there and we're looking around and we want to play with some of the kids but we don't know how to make friends with them.
What should we do?
Well the first step is to make sure we're calm.
So we get to the park,
We have a little look around,
Then we take a big slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.
And then once we're calm,
We take a little look around and see if there's any little boys or girls that we want to play with and once we spot them,
We let our mummy or daddy or our carer or our teacher know that we're going to go over and play with those kids and then we do it.
We join in with what they're doing and say,
Hey can I play with you?
Or hey let's be friends for the day and then you just start joining in and as long as you're enjoying what they're doing and they're enjoying what you're doing,
You're on the way to making friends.
Now sometimes when you make new friends they'll want to do things that you don't really want to do or that they want to play games that you're not ready to play.
That's okay if you don't want to play those games you can simply walk away.
But sometimes you'll want to play those games but you'll also want them to play the games that you want to play.
Maybe they want to go on the swing but you want to go down the slide or maybe they want to play with a ball and you want to play chasey.
That's okay if you find yourself getting frustrated with the games that they want to play.
Just take a long slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.
And then talk to them and say,
How about we play your game for a little while and then we play my game for a little while and you're talking about it.
You're communicating,
You're negotiating,
Because that's the thing about friendships.
You give a little and then you get a little.
It's not all you doing what you want to do and it's not all them doing what they want to do.
When you're making new friends it's important to make sure that you're both happy.
So if you find yourself getting frustrated or the game's not going your way,
That's all right.
Just take a big slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.
And remember,
When you're making new friends it's always nice to introduce yourself.
You say,
Hi this is my name,
What's yours?
And then once you know each other's names you can use each other's names when you're playing.
And the good thing about making friends when you're out and about is that if you really get along you could ask your parents or your teacher or your carers to say,
Hey can you get their details so we can play again?
And you might be lucky enough to come back to the same park,
To the same place and play with these friends because those friends,
You might have them for the rest of your life even.
And the best way to make sure that you make these friends that stick with you,
That do the games that you want to play and that teach you new games that you might have never heard of,
Is to make sure that you're calm and in control and not angry or yelly or screamy.
It's okay to be frustrated but when we're making friends we want to be just chill.
So let's do one more slow calm breath and then you can get on your way to making friends.
You ready?
Have a great day.
This talk was taken from the book Mindfulness,
A guidebook to the present moment.
