I Am a Good Friend (audio)

Maggie Dent:

Hello, and welcome to I Am a Good Friend. This creative visualisation activity will help you understand how to be a good friend to yourself and to others so that you will always have good friends in your life.

I need you to make yourself feel very comfortable. Once you are comfortable, I need you to take three long, slow deep breaths in through your noise and out through your mouth.

Then take one more big breath in. Then take a little bit more air in and a big breath out and allow your body to become relaxed and comfortable.

Now, I want you to imagine that sitting in your lap or resting on your tummy if you're lying down on the floor, is a very small, soft puppy. This little puppy just rests gently on your lap or on your tummy. Keeping your eyes closed, I want you to imagine that you can just pat that little puppy very gently. Very gently. One of the most important things in being a good friend to yourself and others is knowing how to be gentle, kind and caring.

As you're stroking that little puppy just for a few moments, you may notice that your heart feels softer, calmer and more caring. If you could think of a colour that could represent how that feeling is for you as you pet that little puppy, what colour would it be? So this is a colour I want you to remember. That it feels like your heart is filled with this colour when you are feeling safe and cared for.

Now I want you to imagine that you are no longer holding the puppy. That you are now standing outside either your school or your kindy or wherever you are cared for and you are about to enter. Before you enter to greet the people and the children who you share your day with, I want you to take a big breath in and fill your heart with that same colour that you felt while you were petting that puppy.

It's like filling your heart with kindness before you step in. Great.

And next, before you go in, we want you to put on a beautiful, friendly smile. So once your heart's filled with your loving colour and you have that friendly smile on your face, you are ready to go in. Can you remember how good it feels when a good friend rushes up to greet you when you come? They smile at you, they call out your name, some friends hold our hand or give us a hug. But most of all, their face shows us they are so happy to see us. So can you do that sometimes when you meet new friends? Because everybody likes to be welcomed.

So can you imagine you're now in your kindy, you've connected with a friend and you're going off to play?

There are sometimes that your friends may want to do things that you don't really want to do. Sometimes to be a good friend we can do those things with our friends knowing that it makes them happy. And hoping that after they've played with what they want to play with, they might like to come and do what you want to do. So taking turns and being thoughtful are really important things to being a good friend.

I used to be really bossy when I was little and I used to make people do what I wanted them to do. And I know that wasn't being a good friend. I don't want you to make that mistake.

So there's times when we're playing that we would like to go first. And there are times when we're playing where we want to win. Sometimes making that more important than having fun with our friends can make our friends sad. So be careful when you're playing, that at different times we let other people win. We let other people have another go because being kind and being caring is how we become good friends.

There are some other things we do with our good friends. Not only do we take turns and share, we speak kindly. Good friends don't shout. They don't push. They never hit. And there are times that we get frustrated and we might feel like doing one of those things to our friends. It's important that we can stop ourselves.

Some of the things that make us a very good friend are how we help our friends when they're sad or when they're angry. Because that is really what good friends are for. Sometimes we might try and make our friends laugh by pulling funny faces or telling funny jokes or riddles. Or we just might make them come outside and play with us, put them on a swing. It is our job as a good friend to help to cheer up our friends when they're sad or when they're angry. Because sometimes when we're sad and we're angry, our friends will be good and kind to us.

I now want you to imagine that with your very best friend, in your school or your kindy or where you are cared for, you are playing your most favourite game. You know what it is. So spend just a couple of moments playing with your very best friends. Playing your favourite game. And see how everybody has a smile on their face.

When it's time to leave your school or your kindy or wherever you've been cared for, it's important to say goodbye to your friends. We always say goodbye to our friends, just the same as we say hello to them. So give them a hug, hold their hand, say see you tomorrow. They need to know that you are farewelling them after a day.

Can you do that? I think you can. Then as you leave, you know that inside you, when we are kind, caring and safe to our friends, we are being kind, caring and safe to ourselves.

So when we go home, we know how to be that with our mum or our dad or our brothers or our sisters. Or our family pets. Because I know that the happiest people on our world are the ones who try to be kind, caring and safe every single day.

So I hope you now know how do we be a good friend. I hope you have lots and lots of friends and that you can keep being that kind, caring and safe little person who makes others happy as well as yourself.

That's all for now. Take care.