Being a Friend
By Barbara Gilmour
“Welcome back, everyone. We have a guest today. This is my neighbor, Francie.” The kids all stood to meet Francie. Tanner, Nicole, Rudy, Carmen, Stephen and Truman the dragon all told
Francie their names and welcomed her to today’s “Cool Kind Kid” class. “I invited Francie today because everyone thinks she is a ‘good friend.’ She has a lot of friends in school. Most kids call her
‘Fabulously Fun Friend Francie.’” The kids all laughed and asked how she got that name.
Francie smiled shyly and said, “I guess because I try very hard to be a good friend, and kids like that. Sometimes it‘s embarrassing.
But, I like that other kids think I’m fun and want to be my friend.”
“Do you think that you have to be a good friend to have good friends?” All the kids said, “Yes.”
Tanner asked Francie, “What are some of the things you do to be a good friend?”
“I try to help and encourage my friends. I want them to feel they can talk to me and share things with me.”
“That’s good,” shared Nicole, “so when a friend tells you something, you don’t talk about it to anyone else.”
Stephen added, “And, you don’t post it on the Internet.” The kids agreed that wasn’t a cool thing to do.
Carmen wondered, “Do we need to be polite to our friends?”
Rudy said, “Kids won’t want to be our friends if we are rude and impolite. We shouldn’t use bad manners when we are with them.”
Truman added, “Treating our friends with kindness, respect and our best manners shows them that we really care about them.”
Francie smiled at Truman and reached up to high-five him. She then said, “I’m glad I came today. I can’t wait to tell everyone about my new friends here. They won’t believe I have a friend who’s a dragon.”
“Last time we talked about the ‘Cool Kind Kid’ Challenge. Who remembers what that is?”
Tanner was first to say, “Are you TOUGH enough to be KIND?”
Nicole added, “Are you COOL enough to be KIND?”
“How can the Challenge work for making and keeping friends?”
Francie shared, “We can be tough and kind to other kids when we stick up for them if they are being teased or bullied.”
Truman added, “When you do that, you are tough with the bullies and kind to the kid being bullied. We can all do that.”
Tanner said, “We’ll be cool when we follow the rule. I mean The Golden Rule.” Rudy added, “Let’s challenge kids to be cool and follow the rule, like Tanner said.”
Stephen asked, “What about sports? Sometimes it’s tough to be kind when your team is losing or someone is tackling you.”
“That’s where the challenge comes in; we have to try harder to be kind then. But if everyone is trying, we should all be able to get along better. We’ll talk more about friends and the Challenge next time.”
Barbara Gilmour, Tanner’s grandmom, is the creator and developer of the Tanner’s Manners: Be a “Cool Kind Kid” Social Skills, Character Values and Anti-Bullying educational materials and the award-winning “Cool Kind Kid” Audio CD. © Cool Kind Kid. 866-KID-KIND. www.CoolKindKid.com.
