How to win the respect of classmates at school
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You may feel like the other kids at school don’t respect you at all, but you can change their minds. Children can be mean to each other, but they are also capable of recognizing that a person is doing the right thing. The best way to earn acceptance from your peers is to treat everyone with respect and kindness. You should also establish yourself as an open, reliable and mature person. Be true to yourself and demonstrate skills and wit.
- Respect the personal property of others. Never take someone else’s things without permission, and if someone has entrusted you the use of a certain thing, be sure to return it in the condition in which you received it.
- You could, for example, say to the bully: “Hey, buddy! This is not cool, you shouldn’t talk to the girl like that.
- For example, if a classmate tells you that his dog recently died, say something like, “I’m sorry to hear that. I remember how bad I felt when my dog died last year. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Show kindness and a willingness to help. Hold the door for the person behind you or help a peer pick up books they dropped – show your kindness. Don’t reject people, don’t tease them, and don’t spread rumors: you won’t earn recognition from your classmates by doing such things. [4] X.
- For example, if a classmate insults you, laugh or just walk away. Do not stoop to his level, do not insult him back, much less start a fight.
Do not commit disreputable actions. Think about how others will react to your actions, and how you will look in the eyes of others. Don’t tell silly jokes or gossip or spread rumors. Avoid arguments with your peers and never resort to physical disputes.
- To show your peers that you have leadership qualities, you can become captain of a sports team or club, join a student council, or offer to teach others in areas in which you excel.
Join organizations, clubs, or groups. Actively participating in school teams or groups will show your leadership side and help you gain the respect of your peers. Try your hand at soccer, join a chess club, or become a member of a drama club.
Be open to new ideas . People with a broad outlook receive more recognition than limited individuals who consider their opinions as immutable truth. Accept that people may differ in background, religion, or culture, but those differences do not make them better or worse than others. [6] X Source of Information
- Take small steps to bond with others, such as complimenting a classmate’s shirt if you see your favorite band’s logo on it.
- Another way to bond with your peers is to show empathy. For example, if a classmate is upset about a bad grade, think about how you would feel in that situation. Say something like, “I know how frustrating it is to get a bad grade, especially if you’ve been trying really hard. It happened to me earlier this year in art class. Fortunately, there’s still time to improve your overall grade, so don’t let it upset you too much.”
- For example, say, “I’m so tired. I had to clean for a long time last night because my dog knocked over the paint can in the living room!”
- Or use this one: “Have you started your history project yet? I’m thinking of doing mine about the Titanic.”
- For example, if someone praises your outfit, say something like, “Thank you! I bought this at a store that recently opened. Green is my favorite color.”
Be sincere. People who lie quickly lose the respect of their friends and peers. If you are unreliable, you are unlikely to be trusted. Tell the truth and admit your guilt when you make a mistake. Being able to take responsibility for your words and actions will help you gain fame as a mature, respectable person. [7] X Source of Information
Be active during class . Everyone knows that active participation in class discussions allows you to get your classmates’ attention. If you find it difficult to answer the teacher’s questions, try asking questions yourself. Other students who have had similar thoughts, but have hesitated to voice them, will be glad you brought up the subject. [8] X Source of Information
Learn eloquence . Strong communication skills will help you earn the respect of your classmates. If you have trouble expressing your point of view, try some exercises to help you develop your skills. For example, after reading an article in the newspaper or magazine, summarize the information you received. This will help you to discard what is superfluous and highlight the main points at the same time. [9] X Source of Information
- For example, if everyone in your group eats pizza for lunch and you don’t like pizza, don’t imitate others and force yourself. Pick something you like, and if someone comments, just say, “I’m not a big fan of pizza. I prefer salad for lunch.”
- For example, if you’re a good runner, join a group of easy or cross-country runners.
- If someone you know has a great voice, convince them to join a choir or try their hand at a spring musical.
Show off your intellectual skills. An intellectually developed person is respected in society, so don’t be afraid to be seen as a smart guy. Make every effort in class, volunteered to answer questions and offer help to students who have problems with learning. Do not boast of their exceptional intellectual abilities, because a high intellect speaks for itself.
- Don’t take yourself too seriously. If an embarrassing incident happened to you, just laugh and forget about it.
Be confident in yourself . Confidence goes hand in hand with respect. Accept and love yourself as you are, with all your flaws and positive qualities. Choose clothes that make you feel comfortable, and always smile while sharing positivity with friends and peers. [11] X Source of Information
How to help your child if they are not friends
At what age do children make their first friends
At preschool age children begin to learn to communicate, but during this period the most essential role in the socialization of the child is played by contacts with adults – parents, close relatives, educators. Contacts between children at this stage are, as a rule, irregular and short-term.
At younger school age, interactions with other children become more conscious and independent, and communication with peers firmly enters into the daily life of the child. However, children’s collective leisure still passes mainly under the control of adults: the family or school initiates and supervises matinees, birthdays, sports games. It is during this period that the child most actively acquires and develops communication skills.
Parents should carefully observe the manner in which their child communicates with the children, how he behaves during joint games. In elementary school, it is not as important that your child have close friends. If your child doesn’t communicate with peers at all at this age, don’t panic right away, but you should certainly understand that this can be a reason for closer observation so you don’t overlook possible problems.
Preschool and junior high school age – the stages that prepare the child for adolescence, when close friendships with peers already play a crucial role in life. By this point, children should come prepared, with basic communication skills and a developed emotional intelligence.
Why don’t they want to be friends with a child?
Before you worry that your child does not bring a friend to visit or does not go for a weekend walk with kids from school, try to assess the situation calmly and reasonably. First it is important to understand what it is: with the child no one is a friend or he does not come into contact. There are cases where the child really feels comfortable without the companionship and without close friends. However, true introversion is very rare, and it is better to talk to a psychologist about it in order to understand whether the child really has no problems because of a lack of socialization.
More often than not, the lack of friends hides problems that the child is uncomfortable talking about. Unresolved complexes and psychological trauma isolate the teenager from his peers, preventing him from building relationships with friends at a time when social contacts are extremely important.
Such problems include, for example, low self-esteem, which often develops due to excessive pressure in the family, the fear of not meeting parental expectations.
It will also be difficult for a child to make friends, if parents disapprove of his or her social circle – forbidding to communicate with “bad” company, negatively speaking about those guys with whom the teenager is socializing.
The lack of communication skills that the child could not acquire in childhood, naturally make it difficult for a teenager to find friends and get along with their peers. Another reason could be the child’s spoiling – the hyperprotection and permissiveness at home leads to the fact that the child is trying to project the same model of relationship to communicate with strangers who are not ready to accept such rules of the game. Aggression picked up by the child from his or her parents, if violence, unhealthy communication and insults are allowed in family communication can interfere with building friendly relations or communicating with classmates.
In addition to psychological problems, financial issues sometimes also play an important role. The financial situation of the family often determines the possibilities of certain leisure activities for the child or status consumption – at school, where most families have approximately the same level of income, the financial situation can become a reason for marginalization of the child, when he becomes an outcast among his classmates.
What to do if the child does not make friends with anyone
Faced with lacunas in the socialization of the child and having decided to look for the root cause of the problem, parents better start with themselves. Lifestyle of the parents directly affects the behavior and values of the child – this also applies to friendship, as well as all areas of life. If the child does not have before his eyes the examples of communication parents with their friends, he is less likely to seek to make friends and be socially active. Of course, the habits of adults is more difficult to correct, but you can try to take the child more often to visit, invite guests to their homes on holidays, to arrange joint recreation, so that children can see by the example of parents the value of companionship. To pass on to the child skills that allow you to maintain friendships with people, you need to formulate for yourself what you mean by friendship.
It is extremely important to have conversations with your child, especially as a teenager, about friendship conflicts, the values associated with companionship, and the role of friends in your life. Try to teach your child that there are several people with different interests involved in communication. Children and teens need to learn to step into the shoes of another person in communication, and you can help them do this by sharing your experience and perspective. Children are not always ready to share their immediate problems – in this case you can discuss situations from your own life with your child. Asking for advice is a good place to start – in this way you can encourage the child to formulate his or her own position and then discuss it in more detail.
Useful tools for parents:
- Play therapy – modeling and discussing situations with the child.
- courses and manuals on the development of emotional intelligence in children.
- books on psychology for children, such as A. Kurpatov’s book “How to Learn to Be a Friend? A book about the most important skill of the 21st century, which you can give to your child to read or start to study together.
What to do if your child is not friends at school
A child may not communicate with classmates not only because of personal communication problems, but also because of an unhealthy atmosphere in the team. In the worst case scenario, ignoring a child by his classmates could be part of bullying. But you need to understand that in case of bullying absence of friends won’t be the only and not the main sign: the child who is bullied at school will become intimidated, indecisive – you’ll notice that he feels disgusted with school. It is also important that bullying is usually expressed by principled neglect of the student. The lack of close contact with the kids at school alone is not a problem in itself.
To find out if the problem is with the class or with your child, you can enroll him or her in extracurricular activities and see how the relationships develop in the new group. If your child has no socialization problems outside of school, it’s probably because of the class and you should consider moving to another school or class. However, this does not guarantee that the child will have a warm and close relationship with his or her classmates. In this matter it is desirable to proceed from the mood and feelings of the child, as well as support in finding friends outside of school – in sports clubs, drama studios, dance clubs. Don’t forget to also encourage the desire for extracurricular activities.
Go to talk to the school only if you seriously suspect that your child is bullied by classmates, or if you notice that he suffers from a lack of socialization in class. Otherwise, a conversation with the class teacher is likely not only ineffective, but may even be detrimental. There is no guarantee that the teacher will have the opportunity to solve the problem tactfully and adequately. If you feel that you need the support of the school in this matter, it is advisable first to contact the school psychologist: he is more likely to find a way to gently and correctly convey information to the class teacher, and can advise you on how to be.
Equally important is how the parent communicates with the child – are you teaching him or her how to communicate in an environmentally friendly, healthy way? Reflecting on this topic is the first step for parents who find that their child is having trouble maintaining interpersonal relationships.
