Thinking about your best friend, do you remember how you met & become besties? Maybe you were both in the same class back in elementary school or they lived in the same neighborhood as you and together you ruled the block. Regardless of how you both met, something drew you to them where a strong, healthy relationship was built. Of course it didn't happen all at once but over time your best friend demonstrated qualities that showed you they were something special to keep around.
Healthy qualities in friendships are really important and essentially the foundation to all successful relationships/bonds. When these healthy qualities are demonstrated, they can help build our confidence and strengthen us as a person and who doesn't want that, right? Think about some of those characteristics & qualities that your best friend has demonstrated to you over the years & vice versa. Now, take a look at these sentences and identify what healthy friendship quality you think is present in each. There are no wrong answers.
When your bestie knows your password to everything.
When your bestie knows you're lying to yourself and you need someone to tell you like it is.
When they cheer you on during karaoke night when no one else does.
Some of the qualities you might have thought of were trustworthy, straight forward, devoted, supportive, loyal, encouraging, and so many more. All great ones to have in a healthy successful friendship/relationship, especially trust. On the contrary, sometimes friends can demonstrate unhealthy qualities and it's important that you recognize those because it may be worth deciding if they are someone you want to keep around. Find some examples of unhealthy qualities below.
Disrespectful to you & your family
Selfish & claiming their problems are bigger than yours
Back stabbing by talking bad behind your back/creating rumors
Humiliates you in front of others to make their selves look good/cool
Friends who demonstrate these qualities toward us can make us feel insecure about ourselves, shameful, or even angry & upset. So, try your best to be mindful of these unhealthy & healthy qualities so you can recognize what makes a positive friendship or a negative one.
Change is Scary
If change was a year, it would be 2020, can you agree? Your lives have probably changed quite a bit during this pandemic. Just like lives change, friendships do too. On a daily basis, relationships are constantly evolving and maybe your friendships have changed since the start of this craziness or over the last couple of years. Your friends that you once had back in 6th grade may not be your friends now and that's okay. As teens, you are constantly discovering new things you like, things you don't, hobbies that you love to do, or sports that catch your attention.
Sometimes, those interests are not always what your friend likes and you grow apart and there's nothing wrong with that. This kind of change just means you're growing up. Change is something that we unfortunately cannot avoid but can practice adjusting to. Don't be afraid to outgrow your friends, especially if it means you're working toward a better you. If they aren't demonstrating those healthy qualities that you admire, then maybe it's time for a small change.
"Friends may change, but the memories last forever"
Communication is Key
You've probably heard before that communication is a huge, essential thing in a friendship & in life. Hopefully you can agree with that statement because communication can go a very long way. Unfortunately, right now we all are in a sticky situation with communicating with our friends because we can't really have any in person conversations and that can make it difficult for us to stay connected. Every day as teens you wake up, head to school to meet up with your friends and BOOM, the conversations never stop throughout the day, right? However, that has not been the case over the last couple of weeks due to being out of school. You've practically had to change the way you interact with your friends over night, or it may feel like that at least.
The good news is, you can continue to keep that healthy communication with friends even though physical interaction is not permitted. If you've been struggling these last couple of weeks to stay in touch with friends have no fear because you aren't alone. A lot of other teens have probably been feeling that way too. So, I want to offer you some tips on how you can practice keeping that strong, healthy communication with those day one of yours.
Set up weekly/daily face-time or video chat calls to make sure they're doing okay
Send them a positive note/text either when you wake up or sometime throughout the day. It'll let them know you're thinking of them
Put together a small care package with some things they love
Make a social media appreciation post
Check out our weekly challenge below! Rack the points up and have a chance at winning a gift package.
As always, Join the SQUAD and stay HYPE Central Virginia!
Challenge of the week
We understand that times are tough right now with balancing friendships & relationships because interacting with them physically is not the best option right now. Even though the physical interaction piece of building strong, healthy friendships has been put on hold, it is still important to maintain those friendships in other ways like doing weekly phone calls or acknowledging why they’re important to you.
Our challenge for you is to show us how you’ve been keeping up with your bonds with friends and loved ones and why they matter to you. For the next two weeks, we want you to send us ways of staying connected with your friends and what makes them so important to you. Below are different activities for you to complete with a certain amount of points for each. Send us your submissions through direct message on Instagram at @gethypecva or a message on Facebook at @HYPECVA. We will be keeping track of the submissions but you should as well!
Tell us what you admire most about your best friend- 1 point
Name 5 qualities that you value most in a friendship or bond- 2 points
Send us a picture of you facetiming or calling a friend or family member- 4 points
Share with us your favorite memory with a friend and add a picture for an extra point- 3 points
Make a list of things that you are looking forward to doing with your friends when quarantine is over- 2 points
Tell us how you have been staying in touch with your friends & loved ones during this time- 1 point
Send us a picture of you and a friend virtually working on homework or an activity- 3 points
Write something positive to a loved one like a note or comment & show us- 2 points
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