{"id":616,"date":"2021-10-27T11:15:17","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T18:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/andersons\/?p=616"},"modified":"2021-10-28T08:23:34","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T15:23:34","slug":"friendships-and-connection-during-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/andersons\/2021\/10\/27\/friendships-and-connection-during-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"Friendships and Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello Everyone,<\/p>\n

Last weekend I was walking with my family in the forest on the North Shore with friends of ours and their daughter who is the same age as mine. My daughter was a bit nervous at first because she hadn’t seen her friend in such a long time. As a result of both kids feeling nervous it was a bit awkward at the beginning, quiet kids, fidgeting, and parents trying to help them regain the connection they had when they saw each other regularly. They eventually figured it out.<\/p>\n

My friend and I began talking about how hard maintaining friendships and connection to people has been during Covid. How isolating and lonely it can sometimes feels. The same is true for kids and this is even more impactful for them when play and connection make up so much of what they need.\u00a0 Providing time for our kids and ourselves to connect to others is hard, as any busy parent will say. During Covid, it gets even harder.<\/p>\n

Kids require regular play not only to process emotions and thoughts about their world but to also learn how to act in positive ways in social or group situations. This is a skill that they need to learn and practice. Moreover, it has become harder for kids to learn, due to reduced opportunities to practice.<\/p>\n

As parents, we can help our children by creating times and spaces for them to play with other children (eg play dates, extra curriculars, sports teams etc.). We can also help them build their skills by introducing books where friendship is a theme, having family discussions and\/or being that play partner for our kids that models positive friendship qualities and behaviours.<\/p>\n

I came across this cartoon by Elise Gravel which is a great tool for starting a conversation about what a ‘good’ friend is. I thought I would share it with you today.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As always, if helping your child build friendships is a concern for you please do not hesitate to be in touch. I would be happy to have a conversation and\/or help you connect to some resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello Everyone, Last weekend I was walking with my family in the forest on the North Shore with friends of ours and their daughter who is the same age as mine. My daughter was a bit nervous at first because she hadn’t seen her friend in such a long time. As a result of both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/andersons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/andersons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/andersons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/andersons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9813"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/andersons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/andersons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":623,"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/andersons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616\/revisions\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/andersons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/andersons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/andersons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}