Friendship Developing Healthy Relationships With Others Adapted from: The Ophelia Project

Friends  What are the qualities we look for and admire in our friends?  What are the characteristics of a healthy relationship?  What are the characteristics of an unhealthy relationship?

Vocabulary  Healthy Friendship: a friendship in which both members generally like each other and share balanced power.  Unhealthy Friendship: a friendship in which one member does not like the other or when there is an imbalance of power

Healthy Friendships  Are Supportive  Make you feel good about yourself  Provide a sense of belonging  Are nurturing  Support team work  Are inclusive  Can be based upon shared interests

Unhealthy Friendships  Cause hurt  Damage self-esteem  Are exclusive  Build alliances against someone  Leave you feeling lonely of insecure  Prompt you to consider doing things that don’t seem right

The Flow of Friendship Story This is a story of a group of girls on a competition soccer team who all consider each other to be friends.  Maya and Alex have been friend since kindergarten. They are on the same soccer team, like the same music, and enjoy hanging out together. Since they like mostly the same things, they never fight over what to do.

Lately, Alex has been hanging out with Tori, the team’s new goalie. Alex and Tori both like to listen to music, but Alex always chooses which songs they listen to when they are together. Tori would like to listen to some of her favorite artists, but anytime she suggests something, Alex gets mad. Alex says Tori can’t be her friend if she listens to music she doesn’t like.

Maya feels that Tori is a total nerd who needs to stop listening to music all of the time and work on her soccer skills. Tori let in four goals during their last soccer game and Maya blames her for the loss. Tori would like to be better friends with Maya, but feels hurt by the way Maya treats her.

Chloe is the team manager. She has a birth defect, so one of her legs is shorter than the other, making it so she can’t run. She loves being part of the team though. She is nice to everyone and is well liked by the others. Because Chloe wants to fit in, she usually just goes along with what the others want to do. Tori told Chloe that she can go to the mall with the rest of the group on Saturday, but only if she gives Tori the answers to the math assignment.

Think and Talk  Do these girls have a healthy or unhealthy relationship? Why?  Is the power shared equally among all the group members?  Will the unhealthy friendships last?  Are friendships always healthy?  What are some ways these girls can make their relationship healthier?

 Does everyone have the potential to be your friend? Why or why not?  Do you have to establish healthy friendships with everyone?  Remember: You don’t have to be friends with everyone, but you do have to avoid aggression with everyone. Some people, for whatever reason, just don’t appeal to us and that’s OK. However, this is not an excuse to manipulate, abuse, or exclude anyone. You should treat all people with respect.