Back To School: How To Help Children Build Self Confidence and Make New Friends
Updated on: August 29, 2023
The saying “a happy child is a successful child” reminds us that education is about much more than academic achievement. As we think about back-to-school activities for Autumn, friendship activities should be high on the list of priorities.
Whether children are in KS2, KS1 or EYFS, it’s easy to forget they need gentle support to develop and maintain friendships. Too often, adult help with friendships only arrives when children are in a crisis.
What children really need is ongoing assistance.
Why Friendship Activities Are Important
The ability to make friends is a skill we need for life.
Numerous studies have shown that friendships play a central role in our happiness and wellbeing so it’s so important we ensure all children feel confident about how to make and keep friends.
An 80-year study by Harvard found that rather than money or power, it’s close relationships that keep people happy. The research found strong friendships can have a powerful effect on our health which can help to delay physical and mental decline, enabling us to lead long, happy lives.
Further studies, such as William Chopnik’s 2017 research into relationships and lifetime health for Michigan University, have also highlighted the importance of friendship for our health and happiness.
Friendships are about more than social interactions, they’re relationships we can rely on. Knowing we have people we can trust helps to create a sense of belonging that’s important for our self-esteem.
When we can share emotions and experiences with friends, we feel less anxious and have more opportunities to experience joy.
Why Autumn Is The Perfect Time To Make New Friends
As educators and parents or carers we can often help children to build friendships by creating opportunities for children to interact with peers in informal settings.
Autumn is a particularly good time to do this because children return to school refreshed and ready to socialise and absorb new learning.
New classes, new teachers, new seating plans, and a general sense of positive anticipation mean there are lots of opportunities for new friendships to form in the fall.
Confidence and making friends go hand in hand. Returning to school after 6 weeks off can be daunting for children, especially if they are starting a new school, but when we support children by modelling how to make friends, we give them the confidence to try out these skills for themselves.
Why Outdoor Activities Are Ideal For Friendship-Making
The more informal the setting, the easier it is for children to socialise.
Away from adult eyes, in the outdoor environment where there’s greater motivation to engage, children have room to learn through trial and error.
As a top supplier of playground markings and equipment for children’s play spaces, a desire to ensure all children have fun and happy playtimes is at the heart of our design process. All of our playground resources are shaped to help children interact and make friends.
See our playground markings and equipment
How To Help Children Make New Friends
Some of the best ways to support children to make new friends are:
- Create frequent opportunities for informal discussions with peers. Playtimes, social activities, children’s clubs, and parks are all ideal environments for relaxed conversations with other children.
- Model how to strike up conversations with others by frequently conversing with children. Greeting children with a “hi” and warm smile, asking about their interests, opinions or just generally how they are, gives pupils the basic skills necessary for interactions with peers.
- Discuss and model how to: be kind, fair, share, manage emotions, apologise, and forgive. Each of these are key skills children need in order to build and maintain friendships.
Here are some of our favourite friendship activities to help children develop self-confidence and make new friends this Autumn.
Back To School Friendship Activities To Help Children Build Confidence and Make New Friends
1. Agony Aunt:
This is an Autumn back-to-school activity so there’s no reason it can’t be done outdoors. As we’ve already discussed, the outdoor environment adds a level of informality which frees children to interact in a way that’s far more sociable and inclusive.
- Introduce an imaginary character and tell children ‘Fred’ the alien wants to learn how humans make friends.
- Split children into groups of 4 and give each group a large piece of paper with a question from Fred to answer. Give each child a pen. Make each question a different friendship scenario that children their age may face. For example:
- Football looks interesting. How can I join a game?
- My friend won’t let me play with her anymore. What should I do?
- Tell children they have five minutes to discuss as many possible answers as they can.
- Stop children and ask them to decide which answers to write. Children must only record each answer once on the mind-map.
- Tell children they must work together to get all the answers onto the mind-map sheet in 2 minutes. Tell them everyone should be writing.
- Inform children they need to feedback the advice to Fred who will be arriving in five minutes. Tell pupils they need to work as a group and everyone needs to say something.
- Stop the children. Become Fred and sit at the front of the group. Each group must come up to Fred and present their advice. Fred and sometimes one or two members of the class can ask questions.
- KS2 could follow this up by writing a reply to one of the questions in the style of an agony aunt column.
2. Don’t Interrupt:
- Ask children to sit in a circle. Again, this is an Autumn back-to-school activity so you can easily take this game outside.
- Say the first child’s name and ask them an open-ended question which requires them to share their personal opinion such as:
- If you were given Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak, what would you do?
- If you won the lottery, where would you go on holiday and who would you take?
- If you could live anywhere, where would you live?
- Tell the rest of the children they can’t answer. They are only allowed to listen.
- Once the child has shared their answer, they then bounce another question or the same question to someone else in the circle. They must say the child’s name then ask the question.
- Before the receiving child answers, they must begin with some feedback to the previous child’s answer, such as agreeing or commenting on their choices.
3. Emotion Charades:
- Pick a child to come to the front and take a card. Place a stack of cards on the table. Each card should have a different feeling face on one side and nothing on the other. For KS2, some feelings can be written for greater variety.
- The child at the front must act out the feeling.
- The rest of the children put their hand up to guess the feeling. Use the hangman image to mark off each of their chances as they guess.
We have a ‘feelings’ playground marking in our collection which can be used in a similar way if you choose.
All of our designs are open ended so there are endless ways to play with this and any other playground markings in our collection.
See top playground ideas to support children’s emotional wellbeing
Find lots more fun, friendship activities in our collection of playground markings that can take the place of you and support children to make new friends.
Jess Sparks
Jess is deeply committed to supporting our mission of positively impacting UK outdoor play environments to promote healthy lifestyles in children.
With a CIM Level 6 Diploma in Sustainable Marketing, Jess channels her passion for sustainability into her marketing role, using her skills to promote eco-conscious practices and raise awareness for our initiatives.
Jess’ experience within the industry is instrumental in driving engagement and supporting connections with those who require ultra-durable, high-grade playground markings both locally and internationally.