how to survive middle school part 2: making friends

1. Find people you know. This will give you a few friends to start off with. You can ask your elementary friends what school they’ll be going to at the end of your final year...just make sure to get phone numbers so that you can make plans to meet up with them at your new school

2. Find people that live near you. Once you start school, you can also try to make friends with people you see getting on and off at the same bus stop. Friends that live in your neighborhood can be handy, since you’ll have an easier time hanging out and you’ll have someone nearby that you can call for homework help or advice.

3. Be open to new friends. Even if you have a whole bunch of your elementary friends coming with you to middle school, you should still try to make some new friends. If you don’t try to meet new people, you’ll never know what you’re missing! Maybe someone you meet will be your best friend for the rest of your life!

4. Join clubs. A great way to meet new friends is to join clubs at your new school. Most schools will have at least a few clubs and some have lots! You can always start your own too, if you don’t find one that sounds good to you. There might be book clubs, a bible study, movie clubs, theater clubs, environmental clubs, robotics clubs, or yearbook club (and these are just a few examples).

• Don’t forget about sports! There are sports teams if you want to join a team but there might also be clubs that are just about watching or playing friendly matches if you aren’t really good enough or don’t want to join the official school teams.
• Volunteering is also a sort of club that will help you meet new people to be friends with. Your school might have a group that volunteers to raise money for events, make cards for elderly people or people in the hospital, clean up local parks, or other great activities.

5. Show your interests. You should show what you’re interested in in subtle ways so that people that like the same thing will know they can come up and talk to you about it. This is a great way to make friends because you’ll know you already have something in common.

For example, if you like Adventure Time, you can wear a Lumpy Space Princess pin on your backpack. If you like videogames, get a class binder with a picture from your favorite game on it. If you like a sports team, wear a bracelet for that team.

6. Act self-confident. If you show people that you think you’re a great person to be friends with, that you think you have a lot to offer people, then they’ll be much more likely to want to be friends with you. Don’t constantly apologize and don’t back down if people don’t immediately like you. Speak up for yourself, stand up straight, and celebrate the things that make you unique

7. Talk to people! This is the most important part of making new friends! You’ll never make friends if you don’t talk to people. Join conversations that sound interesting and introduce yourself to people you think you’d like to be friends with.

8. Do fun things. If other people see you enjoying yourself, they’ll want to join in and be friends with you so that they can have fun too. You can do fun things by joining clubs, drawing in between classes, or putting together parties or other activities for after school.

9. Be nice! If you want people to be friends with you, it’s important to be a nice person. Who wants to be friends with a jerk? Nobody! Be kind to everyone you meet, even if they aren’t nice back. People will notice that you are a great person and they will be much more likely to be nice to you.

• It’s important to be actively nice, not just polite. Help people that have trouble in class, stand up for others when they’re getting bullied, and do nice things for people when you can. Also, give people honest compliments when they seem like they need it!
• You never know when someone is going through some really tough times. They could feel like they’re dying inside and they might not show it. Your kind words or deeds could make a world of difference to them.
• Remember that sometimes, when people are acting really jerky, they do that because they feel bad about themselves or something that’s happening in their life. They’re mean because they don’t know what kindness looks like! Try to be nice to them even if they’re mean to you: it might help make them a better person.