Building respectful relationships

Students examine social skills and categorise them into skills that show respect, empathy or value differences.

1. Ask:
   • How do we feel when our friendships have problems? (sad, nervous, rejected)
   • What kinds of problems can friendships have? (misunderstandings, arguments, jealousies, growing apart – stress that all friendships have problems sometimes but these problems can usually be sorted out. Some friendships are only temporary however this doesn’t mean that one of you has done something wrong or that you are not likeable)
   • Brainstorm: What are some of the skills we use to get along with our friends and others? (social skills that lead to good relationships such as being positive; being a good listener; finding things in common; being a good winner and loser; being interesting; cooperating and being flexible. Other social skills are being understanding and supportive; sharing information about yourself; showing empathy and being loyal)
   • Are you born with these skills? (No, you have to learn and practise them. If you get on well with others, you have a sense of belonging and satisfaction. Practising these skills while you are young, will help you get along with people better when you are an adult)
   • Do we use fewer 'getting along with people' skills with our brother/sister or mum/dad? Why?
   • What is respect?
   • What is empathy?
   • How can someone show that they value differences in others?
2. Show Teaching Resource: Getting along with others and read through with class. As a class, categorise each of these skills into one or more of the categories of Respect, Empathy and Valuing Differences by labelling them with the letter R, E or VD respectively on the whiteboard.
3. In small groups, students consider Student Activity Sheet: What turns you off? which looks at ‘turn offs’ that make it harder to respond to someone in a positive way, even though he/she is probably a nice person. They must decide, as a group, on four more ‘turn offs’ to add to this list and then rank the top five ‘turn offs’ and discuss as a class. Write common rankings on the whiteboard.
   • As a class, categorise the common rankings as a lack of skills into one or more of these categories: Lack of Respect, Lack of Empathy or Not Valuing Differences by labelling them with the letters LR, LE or NVD respectively on the whiteboard.