1. Define “friendship” on the basis of some bibliographic reference.
Friendship is a relationship between two or more people that share affective bonds. Friends, according to Burbach, C., are people who make you feel good, people with whom you can relate, people who would never see you down and will cheer you when facing a problem. Friends are kind, they do nice things for their peers.
As Ferrer-Chancy, M. and Fugate, A. state, friendship is vital for a healthy development of a children who are in their school-age. It has been proved that children who lack from friends can suffer from emotional and mental difficulties during their following years of life, in their teen ages and adulthood.
Friendship helps children develop emotionally and morally as when interacting with their friends, children learn social skills such as communication, cooperation and the resolution of problems. They also learn how to control their own emotions and how to react to other’s emotions.
Having friends also affect the performance of children in school. Children usually have better attitudes about school and learning when they have friends in their classroom or in the school.
2. Elaborate three questions and their corresponding answers, from the reflexive study of the following article:
García-Bacete, F., Sureda, I., & Monjas, Mª I. (2010). El rechazo entre iguales en la educación primaria: Una panorámica general. Anales de Psicología, 26 (1), 123-126. Disponible en http://revistas.um.es/analesps/article/view/92121
a) Literal question: Which are, according to the text, the main characteristics of a rejected kid?
Rejected children are easily identified by their peers, teachers and families and is because they act and interact by followed patterns. According to the text (García-Bacete, F., Sureda, I., & Monjas, Mª I., 2010), a rejected student is that child who has an almost nonexistence social activity, less self-esteem; enjoy less than other kids the activities held during the lessons, they feel dissatisfied with the help that the teachers and their peers give to them during those activities.
They believe their teachers do not appreciate them as they should and they see them in a negative way, incapable to perform as their peers. They see their families are less unified than others, with more conflicts, with less positive communication, and with less interest in what their children are doing in class. Those families have usually less educational level, are often unemployed, and do not value positive the learning process and the educational system itself.
b) Inferential / deductive question: The text makes a classification of how children show their rejection to others. This classification includes an example for each aspect. Could you give another example for each classification a part from the ones that already appear in the text?
In order to express their unsatisfactory situation and their feeling of rejection, based on the article (García-Bacete, F., Sureda, I., & Monjas, Mª I., 2010), children show this situation by different strategies. The first that the text states is that those children do not intend to interact with their peers. An example different from the one in the text that I can give about this situation is when a kid has troubles to resolve a mathematic problem that needs to be handed to the teacher the following day, and a peer want to help this kid because he is good at Maths but the rejected kid rejects his offer.
Then, a rejected child tends to not accomplish the desires of their peers. This can be exemplified when this kid denies something that other child has asked, like a toy or the notes from the previous lesson as he was in the doctor and could not write down anything. Also, rejected children are usually aggressive to other peers or to their belongings. He can easily hit another kid for saying or doing something he is not agree with, or he can for example strip the bad of a peer if that child has said something that he considers disrespectful about him.
Very linked to aggressiveness, a rejected child want to feel powerful and dominant, and for that talks to their peers with a loud tone of voice, with rude words and despairs. For example, if a peer says that he does not like the shoes of the rejected kid, this can respond without manners and using a hostile tone. A rejected child remarks the negative thing another kid has done too, such as if a kid says that the toy of Amy is silly, the rejected child will say something bad and negative to him for behaving like that with Amy.
A student who faces rejection is very likely to involve a third person in a discussion, and normally happens when an unpleasant situation is being developed. For example, if the rejected kid, called Patrick, is playing with Charlie with a ball, and Kate makes fun of how Charlie loses the ball constantly, Patrick instead of defend his friend, he will support the opinion of Kate.
c) Extensive / profound question: The text states what a teacher and the educative community must do when they observe a rejection, and what kind of interventions need to be done when this happens, but it does not reflect much about the role of the parents in these kind of intervention. Could you look for in other sources what parents should do when they observe their child is rejected in school?
García-Bacete, Sureda, and Monjas, Mª I., (2010) propose some useful interventions that should be done in classroom to avoid a rejection to be fully developed when identifying a child who is being teased. The teacher has to make that the rejected child interacts with his peers in order to end with this situation. This is one of the precedents that the authors lean in the article, but other aspects are being rapidly stated as other factors that help in this intervention. One of those is the family and the role that they have in this situation.
According to Michael Grose, parenting expert, parents need to encourage their children who suffer from rejection to make new friends so their children no longer feel outcast. They also can explain to them that rejection can happen for many reasons that can be not related to them as individuals, so this situation cannot be a reason to harm the self-esteem of a child.
Parents should be the confidents of their children. They must create a comfortable atmosphere so the child feels secure and able to explain his problems and what is happening during his school life that make him feel less than his peers. Children have to be capable of recognizing their troubles and accepting the feelings and repercussions that those situations have in them.
The opinion that parents have about rejection is a key element for the children. If they observe that for their parents, rejection is considered as a huge problem and a disappointment, then the children will be not able to see rejection from a different point of view. They really believe and make them the opinions that they hear in their homes. When children are in primary education are extremely influenced by what their family feels and believes, they do not have their own opinions, they take what their parents think and make those feeling their own. On the contrary, if a parent considers rejection as challenge possible to be faced and overcome, the child will deal with the situation in a more positive way and with more confidence than other children.
Another article, this time by Collins, S., Covert, K., Falls, S., and DegliObizzi, M., states that a child when being rejected needs to be taught appropriate social skills such as how to control the anger that he is feeling when suffering from this situation. Parents, and in this case also teachers, have the responsibility to help the kid to control his feelings and become calmer when being rejected. Also, other social skills and behaviors need to be taught to this special kid in order to understand the value of sharing and cooperating. The kid has to be aware of the importance and benefits that peers interactions have during this stage of his life.
Rejected children must understand the value of having close friends with whom they can relate and talk peacefully, and people with whom they feel safe, comfortable and capable of having good times together more than being a popular kid. Parents should teach their children that the important is not the number of friends you have but how strong if the bond with the friends that they have.
Although, parents need to be aware that their reactions would have a great impact in their children, so if they observe that their kids are being rejected in school, they should never panic neither overreact. Children need with whom to talk about their current situation, someone who can listen to them, someone that can help them.
Bibliographic references
Burbach, C. What is friendship? About friendship
Ferrer-Chancy, M. & Fugate, A. The importance of friendship for school-age children
García-Bacete, F., Sureda, I., & Monjas, Mª I. (2010). El rechazo entre iguales en la educación primaria: Una panorámica general. Anales de Psicología, 26 (1), 123-126.
Grose, M. (parenting expert). Kids need to know how to deal with rejection. Body and soul. http://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/pregnancy+parenting/parenting+tips/kids+need+to+know+how+to+deal+with+rejection,7983
Collins, S., Covert, K., Falls, S., Simon, S. & DegliObizzi, M. Socially rejected children: recommendations for teachers and parents. Practical Recommendations and Interventions: Socially Rejected Children
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