What makes you a good friend?

We're making friendship bracelets, giving some away, and talking about what makes a good friend. This June at The Hello Clinic is all about friendship! As many families transition from the routine of the school year, and some pass from elementary to middle school or beyond, we're all taking time to honor our friends, sign yearbooks, hug our teachers and prepare for summertime adventures with our friends and family. We're also welcoming a new friend to our clinic practice! Christina Gagosian, OTR/L is joining our team as a full-time OT, so please let us know if you are interested in scheduling an occupational therapy evaluation or OT therapy (click here to learn more about what OT can do for you!).

National Best Friends Day

On June 8, we celebrated National Best Friends Day in style. We gave friendship bracelets made by Foster Club to our clinic friends. For each bracelet purchased, Foster Club shares the love and provides a bracelet for a child in foster care. It was a fun and tangible way for us to embrace our core value of Give. The kids at the clinic loved the bracelets and let us take a bunch of pictures. Some kids chose to wear their new bracelets, and others chose to give them to their best friends. Awwwwwwww!

Meanwhile, in the waiting room . . .

Merriam-Webster defines the noun friend as: "someone who you like and enjoy being with." While in our waiting room, please take a moment to ask your kids to think about what makes them a good friend, and jot the ideas down on a sticky note to share on our poster. We always enjoy the responses we get from these waiting room brainstorming posters!

Here are some of the great answers that have already been shared by the cool kids hanging out in The Hello Clinic waiting area:

• "I am kind to my friends."
• "I like to have parties with them."
• "I give my friends big hugs.
• "I let them do what they want to play."
• "I share toys."
• "I drink tea."
• "I share the cars at school."
• "Because I love them."
• "I say, 'Come to my house and say can I be your friend?'

Let's make our own bracelets!

Finally, we are making a simplified version of friendship bracelets with pipe cleaners and beads over in our craft room.

We're targeting vocabulary that's associated with friendship, asking questions like "What are some other words for friend?" and "What words mean the opposite of friend?" as well as using vocabulary and concepts that relate to making the bracelets themselves. "What materials do we need?" "How many?" "Describe what I should do next?" "Can you tell dad how you made your bracelet using first, next, last?"

We hope your summer is full of loads of friends, both old and new!