Although adults and teachers might try to make you feel like your life is “easy”, the truth is even young people have issues.
School can be stressful, from all the studying to homework and exams to worrying about your results. You may experience bullying at school or have things going on at home that make you feel anxious, insecure and unlovable. These factors can make school seem like an unpleasant place to be.
The truth is, no matter what you are going through you really are awesome and as long as you believe in yourself, keep working hard and do the right things eventually it will all pay off. This is a FACT!
School and life (in general) are less stressful with (good) friends but you might find it difficult to make friends at school. You don’t have to feel awkward if you have this issue, it happens to everyone – even adults.
These are some tips you can use to help you make friends at school;
1) Smile
This seems like an easy and obvious thing but a smile can start a friendship. If you feel uncomfortable at school, it might seem difficult for you to smile. However, not smiling will make you look even more like an outsider and people will have a difficult time approaching you.
I do not mean you should walk around school with a constant smile on your face because other students might find this strange. However, you should lighten up and give out positive energy. Laugh at the jokes your classmates make or even funny things that happen in class. This could easily lead to conversations or even just more people to say “hello” to at school.
2) Make Yourself Available
If you tend to sit alone, your classmates might not come up to you to have conversations because they think you want to be alone. If you want to make friends you have to put yourself out there somehow in order to make friends. Sit where people are gathered, it doesn’t have to be a crowded table, sitting with 2 to 3 people is just great. You could also “hang around more” – stay a little while longer after school, go for your school’s inter-house sports or your school’s Christmas concert.
Maybe you are invited to a party of your classmates’ but you don’t want to go because you think you would not know a lot of people there, you should really take a chance and go. Make yourself available not just for your classes at school but also for extracurricular activities like school trips and other social events and see what happens.
3) Focus on Getting to Know One Person At a Time
Although you would like to have a lot of friends, it is easier to start with one person first. You should choose to talk to people who are usually on their own because speaking to one person at a time will be easier for you to handle. You can ask questions like – how was your holiday or what did you do over the holidays? You could also ask to borrow something say a pen, pencil or set square to use at school and explain why you need it.
You can also offer help to a student you see in your class struggling with a subject you understand or even talk to a classmate about things you have in common – a favourite musician or song, your favourite anime character or even the latest dance trend on TikTok.
Make sure you are not focused on just one person, try to do this with a few classmates. This is because the one person you choose to become friends with might not want to be friends with you or they may not be able to be there for you as often as you would like and that’s okay. You don’t want a forced friendship because it will never last. It could even decrease your sense of self-worth and that’s something you do not want.
4) Join a Club or even After-school Lessons
This will give you a chance to interact with students in your school outside the normal classroom setting. Joining a club will help you find students who share similar interests as you – this gives you an opportunity to have different types of conversations with other students, you can join the football club, science club, debate club or even the dance club.
You can choose whatever you like and even if you choose something and you find out you don’t like it, hopefully, you can get a chance to join a different club. Even joining an after-school lesson will help you increase your knowledge in various subjects and as well as giving you a different group of students to sit with and therefore, make friends with.
5) Show People You Like Them
I know it can be hard to show others how you really feel because you might be afraid of rejection. You can make other students feel good about themselves by giving sincere compliments. You can tell a classmate about something they did that you liked, say a question they asked or answered in class, and you could also compliment their hairstyle or haircut.
However, if you give someone a compliment and they seem uncomfortable, stop (without feeling awkward). Don’t carry on giving someone compliments if they don’t show appreciation. In the best case scenario, when you compliment someone eventually they compliment you back, this is a good sign for you to carry on trying to get to know them and work on a friendship.
6) Avoid Compromising Situations
Yes, you want to make friends but that is not worth putting yourself in compromising or dangerous situations. Stay away from those students who want you to do illegal or harmful things for example drinking, smoking and bullying other students.
Some students might pressure you to do things with the opposite sex that you are not comfortable with just so they have something to gossip about. Stay away from these types of friends, a friendship with such students is not worth it.
7) Be Yourself
All these points are important but this is the most important. Being yourself is about knowing who you are. You might have interests different from your peers, it’s tempting to try and fit in by changing a few things about yourself. But this can often backfire. Maybe you like soccer, anime and watching hair tutorial videos on YouTube. Don’t act like you don’t just to fit in. You could miss out on a friendship with another student who actually has similar interests as you.
Practice these steps and watch your circle of friends grow!
Responses
Wow really