Hi everyone! I’m Mandy Bush and I am the online business manager for Cardinal Rule Press (Maria’s publishing company). I am a mother of 2 (son and daughter) and I will be blogging on Be the Difference and will be recapping some valuable tips from Maria’s new show, Empowering Kids With Character – The Show!
On April 6, Maria opened a new month with a new theme – Friendship! You can watch the full video here.
For this practical tip, Maria shared the “Three Finger Friendship Challenge” (downsized from the Five Finger Challenge, based on your child’s age – see paragraph below).
- Hold up 3 fingers and ask your child(ren) what are the 3 most important things to them, when it comes to someone being their friend (my 4.5-year-old son said “helping change tires” was important to him – while logical, not very practical at his age, ha!).
- Discuss with your children that the same character traits they value in a friend are also traits that they should display.
- Using your fingers helps them to remember the values, even when they are not around home. When they are at school, they can remind themselves to reflect on those values and ask themselves if the person they are playing with portraying what they value in a friend OR are they themselves portraying those values? This will help them become better friends to others.
For those of you with older children, you can adjust the number of values accordingly – if you have a toddler, you could ask them for 1 trait. For a preschooler, you could ask them to list 3 values. Then, for children in grades 1-5, they could list 5 things that are important in a friend.
I think this is super important for us, as adults, to do inventory of a few times a year as well. What can I do better as a friend and what do I value in a friendship? Am I portraying what I value? Am I hanging on to friendships that are more draining than not? Is there a friendship I could invest more time in, as they have the values I appreciate?
Maria’s new book, Fruit Salad Friend, talks about the perfect recipe for a friend, which is going to look different for each individual. It’s a great book to read with your children in reference to this lesson!
Join our private Facebook Group: Empowering Kids with Character. You don’t want to miss the amazing and awesome tips and tricks that is being shared by parents and educators alike!