What I wanna teach my kids about friendship
Life isn't meant to be lived alone. That's why we were created to be in relationships with others, whether that be marriage, dating, or friendship! Friendship is beautiful if done in the right way. Often times I see and hear sad things in the world though that make me question how people really view friendship. This is why I want to teach my kids how to do them well!
Have you ever heard someone give the advice "They aren't being a good friend. You deserve better. You should just let them out of your life and move on"? Or at least something of the sort. We have all heard something like this before. We want to boost each others egos and make them feel like they are the best and they deserve the best. How is that wrong? Have we ever stopped to think about what type of friend we are?? I'm not talking about how great of friends we can be on our good days, but what type of friends are we on our bad days?
As humans, we are imperfect, yet we expect our friends to be perfect or we drop them. I don't know about you, but this is NOT the message I want to be sending my girls. I want to teach my girls about how to be a true friend. I want my girls to be able to recognize that sometimes in life people struggle, and that's okay! Their friends may go through highs like getting into a good college or getting married. In those times, we celebrate!
On the flip side, they will also go through some hard times, like parents getting divorced or a loved one dying. In those times we mourn with them and continue to be present. They may want to open up and talk about it, but they may just bottle it up and take out their anger on you. In those times, we encourage, not tear down. We forgive, because we at times have needed to be forgiven. We love them even when we feel they are unloveable, because guess what, they are just as equally deserving of love as anyone else.
In friendship, there will be times where they are the weaker one, and there are others where we are the weaker ones. The friendships where you are both there for each other and work through difficult situations, become the greatest and most rewarding friendships! I want my girls to understand that they don't leave friends because they are human, but stick with them because they recognize the imperfections we all have in common.
