Improve Your Communication Skills
A Controlling Friendship – A Bully By Another Name
Have you ever had a friend who made you feel bad? Maybe your friend was mean to you sometimes, and confused you. Or she (or he) would ignore you because you had done something wrong.
We all fall out with our friends on occasion, even us adults. It is a normal part of life.
When the friendship is one-sided then it is a different story. Then we might say it is a ‘controlling friendship’.
Being a Teenage Vegetarian
What do you do when you want to become a vegetarian but your parents aren’t too keen? Tabitha explains how her family reacted to her decision, how they have adapted to having a teenage vegetarian in the family and how she eats healthily without meat.
Like a lot of teenagers, I decided to become a vegetarian. Some do so because they want to rebel, some people think it will be healthier, or just don’t like meat that much. I was convinced to go veggie when I was 13 after a biology dissection. It was only a rat, but it made me realise that I didn’t want to be eating animals as I have a pet rabbit and it was just too close to home for me. Also, a Jamie Oliver programme I accidentally watched featuring the making of sausages put me right off… But mainly for me, it was the animals.
Good Relationships – Healthy Relationships – Tips for Kids
Relationships are hard at any age. Remember that we don’t just talk about relationships when we mean a boyfriend or a girlfriend – it’s about how you get on with your parents, your friends and other people important to you.
There are certain basic ideas that are important to developing good relationships; you master these and life suddenly becomes a lot less stressful! Alice Hoyle has some ideas that may help you have better relationships with the people in your life.
Communication
Image by Robert Collins on Unsplash
Communication is the most important aspect of any relationship. Sharing things with people in your life is important. We do this mostly by speaking and listening. It is important to share how you feel about things and to listen and try to understand how others feel about things (this is called empathy).
How good are you at both talking AND listening? If you favour doing only one of them in a relationship then this isn’t as balanced as it could be- you probably need to work on doing both and so should the other person.
Also sometimes people might say something but their body language (how someone uses their body or their facial expression) maybe saying something different. Take some time to consider what is your body language saying when you talk? What is their body language saying? Do you make eye contact when you talk?
A key to successful communication is to use “I” statements instead of “you” statements- eg. “I feel sad when you call me silly” is better than “You calling me silly makes me sad” because the second one can put the person on the defensive straight away and the conversation can go badly after that.
A Poem – Sadness is a Storm
This poem was sent to us by one of our talented young readers, 14 year old Rebekah.
Sadness is a storm.
A clap of thunder,
As you howl and wail,
Yet through it all,
You still prevail.
Nothing withstands
The heart of the tempest.
Ominous clouds loom,
Lightning flashes.
Light still gets through.
It gives you a glimpse,
Of hope pure and true
All’s well once more,
With the subsiding of the storm.
.
Moving to Secondary School – Written By You
Some of you will be moving to secondary school this year, and you might be a bit worried about it. We spoke to 12 year old Josie about how she felt when taking this big step, and what advice she’d give to younger kids.