Friendship in a New School Year

School has started and along with the new backpacks, lunch bags, and smiles, comes the reunion of classmates and friends. It is heart-warming to watch children at school reunite with hugs, smiles and active conversations about time away from one another. The buzz of excitement is palpable. There is also another side to friendship and peer relationships in a new school year. I experience a common challenge whereby students hold onto conflicts and problems with some peers from the past school year. Indeed, parents tend to do this as well. Sometimes, children receive mixed messaging from their families about staying apart from another student, or making sure they don’t play together at recess. In light of these experiences and observations, I pose several questions to parents and teachers:

What are we actually accomplishing when we hold onto past challenges? Are we able to forgive and move forward to creating new understandings in these relationships? Are we able to refrain from labeling a child who is learning and growing? Are we able to provide a fresh start for everyone, knowing that past challenges are not always indicative of present ones? When we throw “bandages” on the relationship challenge- are we impeding our children from building the skills to work through disagreements and challenges? Are there other strategies we can use to build inclusive communities at school?

Children are learning, changing, and growing all the time. I challenge us all to embrace this, and help both ourselves and children enjoy a school year full of fresh beginnings.