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Friendship is one of the cornerstones of a happy and fulfilled childhood. Learning how to become a good friend is an important part of every child’s preschool and early elementary years. But, don’t assume that your child naturally knows how to be a friend—most kids don’t. There are four skills your child must learn in order to have friendship success: empathy, listening, taking turns and sharing. Without these, her attempts at friendship will be thwarted—now and in later years. You will, therefore want to take every opportunity to support your child in developing all four skills.

Empathy: In some ways, this is the most challenging because it’s almost impossible to explain empathy to a child. Empathy is not feeling sorry for someone (that is sympathy). Rather, it is being able to put yourself in the other person’s position. Empathy is best taught first through role-modeling—because this helps your child know how great it feels when someone understands her. For example, when her feelings are hurt by a friend you might say “A few weeks ago my feelings were hurt by my friend so I know how you feel—it made me sad when my friend was mean to me.” The second step to teaching empathy is that when your child hurts another person’s feelings you should remind her how it felt when her feelings were hurt. Practiced regularly, these two techniques will effectively teach your child to become empathic.

Listening: Young children are naturally impatient and self-centered, neither of which makes for a good listener. The key is to help your child learn the difference between “listening” and “waiting to talk”. When you are not sure that your child is listening, ask her to repeat back what you just said. This will train her to listen, not just wait for you to finish speaking so she can talk.

Empathy is important when it comes to listening—ask your child how she feels when someone doesn’t listen or interrupts her. Remind her that this is how the other person feels when she does that to them. Explain that good friends listen to each other—they don’t just “wait to talk.”

Taking turns: The best way to teach this skill is to make sure that you don’t always allow your child to have her way or win at every game, and that you resist the urge to always let her go first. When a child always gets what she wants, when she wants it, she will not have the skill-set to sometimes allow others to get what they want. It can feel uncomfortable to not get one’s way, but learning to manage these feelings is a critical life lesson—not only for friendship, but for every relationship. If your child isn’t a great turn-taker, remind her about it before she spends time with a friend, and prompt her when the opportunity to do so arises.

Sharing: Like taking turns, sharing does not come naturally to all children and it’s first learned at home. Very few children enjoy sharing until they see that the benefit (a friend being happy) far outweighs the loss (having less candy). It’s important to model sharing for your child—generously share with her and with others. Talk to her about how happy it makes you feel to share and explain that sharing makes the other person feel that you care about them. If your child is reluctant to share, remind her that without sharing, a friendship probably won’t last very long. For very reluctant sharers, start small. Ask your child to share for just a few minutes, or just a small amount. This will help her grow accustomed to it and help her see that it makes the other person happy—which will reinforce the behavior.

Raising a child to be a good friend can be hard work for parents, but the effort is well worth it when you realize that your child has become an adult who is capable of deep, meaningful relationships.