Friendship is often thought of as a virtue that comes most naturally to children. However, it needs careful tending, because the virtue of friendship is not just something that we possess, but requires that we do something - namely, be a friend. I hope to provide some ways to help with that in this post. Let’s begin, first, with the meaning of friendship.

What is Friendship?

The Aristotelian understanding of friendship is:

Striving after someone else’s good for their own sake. The continual, active cultivation of human relationships based on the love of the same thing. 

How Do We Foster Friendship At Home?

The truth is, the best way to foster friendship in your home is to model it yourself. Now, this might sound like an easy task. Often enough, it is. But we must not only be friendly when it is convenient or easy. Friendship exists in the midst of conflict and disagreement as well. It exists when the things you think, feel, and believe most passionately are threatened. 

A master of the virtue of friendship exhibits it in conversations with bosses, in-laws, children, and spouses. It is important to include teachers, other parents at a school, and students in this list as well. For they too fall under the definition of “relationships based on the love of the same thing.”

Children pay attention to the spirit and tone you bring to conversations. They notice what you say about relatives, teachers, and neighbors in the privacy of your own homes. They notice how you speak to your spouse when you disagree.

If we want our children to understand friendship in a meaningful way then we must be vigilant in our own relationships and bring the desire for good to each interaction.

In turn, how can your child show friendship to those who may need a friend but don’t have many?  How can they be a friend to someone they don’t get along with all the time?

This is another area where you can model what this looks like. When you take a meal to someone going through a big change - whether that be a new baby, grief, a move, etc. - you model friendship. When you go out of your way to tell your child something you appreciate about them - you model friendship.

These are small, incremental steps that parents can take to foster a childlike view of friendship that will eventually turn into a much larger and deeper understanding.

My son is three years old and I myself have heard some iteration of this (usually involving a toy car or train), so I can imagine how often parents with grade-school children hear it.

Remember now the definition we outlined above: Striving after someone else’s good for their own sake. This means desiring that our friends do well.

As parents, we can encourage our children to cheer on their friends and remind them that a friend’s success does not mean their own failure. On the contrary, we should be delighted when our friends succeed in good and noble endeavors because we care about their wellbeing and happiness. 

As of the publishing date of this article, we’ll be heading into the end of another school year - a time filled with a plethora of events, stressful exams, and an approaching goodbye to another graduating class of seniors. Indeed, fostering the virtue of friendship is always important, but it seems particularly timely right now.