Positive relationships and quality friendships contribute greatly to children's well-being and resilience according to research. Relationships are the foundation for building resilience from childhood through adulthood. Having at least one close mutual friendship in childhood is linked to lower rates of loneliness, anxiety, and bullying. First impressions are formed quickly, within a few seconds, and take many encounters to change, so it is important to be aware of body language, tone of voice, appearance, and other non-verbal cues when managing a first impression. Active and constructive listening helps strengthen relationships while passive or destructive styles can damage them.

2. Positive Relationships
The external factor that appears to make the
largest contribution to children and young
people’s wellbeing and resilience is their
experience of positive relationships.
Luthar (2006) reviewed research studies and
concluded that resilience for children and young
adults is fundamentally built on the foundation of
relationships

3. Peer relationships
Number of friendships is not as important as the
quality
Resilient young people tended to develop a small
number of friendships with people who stuck with
them, sometimes from primary school to middle age
(Werner and Smith, 1992).
At least one mutual friendship in childhood is related
to lower levels of loneliness, anxiety and being
bullied (Ladd et al. 1996)

5. First Impressions
Most people take only a few seconds to form a first
impression and studies show it takes many
encounters to change an initial opinion about
someone.
A study by Mehrabian (1981) suggests that when we
communicate, only 7% of meaning comes from the
words we use.
Remaining 93% comes from our tone of voice and
body language.

6. Managing the first
impression
Be aware of:
Posture
Tone, volume and pace
Appearance
Facial expressions
Language
Eye contact
Confidence

8. Listening
When an individual responds actively and
constructively to someone sharing a positive
experience, love and friendship increase.

9. 4 styles of responding:
“Guess what? I got an A!!! Woohoo!!!”
Active authentic, Wow! That’s fantastic! What for?
constructive enthusiastic What feedback did you get? Did you
support expect it? How much work did you
have to do? Any advice for me?
Passive understated Good work!
constructive support
Passive ignoring the Guess what – I’m hungry – let’s get
destructive event something to eat
Active pointing out Enjoy it while it lasts. I heard the
destructive negative assignments get harder throughout
aspects of the the semester. Say goodbye to your
event social life if you want to keep getting
As

10. Assertive communication
Passive style conveys “I don’t believe you’ll
listen to me anyway/it’s wrong to complain”.
Aggressive style conveys “people will take
advantage of any sign of weakness”.
Assertive style conveys “people can be trusted”.

11. Seligman’s five step model
of assertive communication
1. Identify and work to understand the situation
2. Describe the situation objectively and accurately
3. Express concerns
4. Ask the other person for his/her perspective and
work toward an acceptable change
5. List the benefits that will follow when the change is
implemented

13. Gratitude
an emotion or state resulting from an awareness and
appreciation of that which is valuable and meaningful to
oneself
feeling grateful enhances physical health (Emmons &
McCullough, 2003), promotes positive reframing of negative
situations, increases life satisfaction (Lambert, Fincham,
Stillman, & Dean, 2009), and enhances comfort in voicing
relationship concerns (Lambert &Fincham, 2010)
appreciation was listed as one of the most important factors
contributing to a satisfying marriage according to long-term
married (25–40 years) couples (Sharlin, 1996).

15. Paul Wehr (1979)
Is the relationship important to at least one party?
Is the issue important enough to argue over?
Is there time pressure or stress?
No – likely to postpone or decline working through
conflict
Yes – more willing to work things out

16. Conflict styles
Avoidance
Accommodation
Coerce
Compromise
Collaborative problem-solving

17. Avoidance
Doing whatever they can to avoid an argument
through silence or flight.
Frustrates any possibility of a solution.

18. Accommodation
When in conflict, accommodators tend to use
appeasement, processing conflict by creating
harmony through self-suppression.
“Whatever you want is fine with me”
Can block productive issue resolution.

19. Coerce
Force the other party or the conflict process or
to use power to silence the opponent.
May be perceived as aggressive and may
provoke resistance and inflame conflict.
Usually goes with an accommodator but
relationship is unhealthy

20. Compromise
Based on dialogic communication with
reciprocal listening and assertive negotiation of
needs and desires.
Best conducted between parties of similar
power.
Disadvantage: needs or goals of each party are
only partially satisfied – incompletely favourable.

21. Collaborative problem-
solving
Relative time consuming.
Mutually disclose their needs, opinions and desires
and are committed to the wellbeing of the opponent.
They communicate until they can identify the issue
clearly and come to a common understanding of the
problem when they then can consider several
solutions to satisfy both parties.