Friends are really important as you grow up. Sometimes they feel more important than your family! They can help you with your problems, introduce you to new ideas and share your dreams for the future. It is important to chose good people as your friends and to support them too.

Are you a good friend: Ask yourself:

• Do you encourage your friends? Be encouraging: each person has happy and sad moments and needs to be encouraged.

• Are you genuine with them? Being genuine means that you can be yourself and not feel as if you have to pretend to be something else to impress them. Your real friends like you for your real self, don’t put on an act.

• Do you build them up or cut them down? Don’t tease or belittle your friends - and stand up for your friends if someone else does so . No one feels good when they are teased. In fact, teasing someone can make them feel less human.

• Can you compromise? Although you may not agree with your friends on all the things, you should learn to respect your differences.

• Are you considerate? Do you consider their feelings as well as your own.

• Can you talk openly about disagreements? Everyone disagrees sometimes, and friends can even have big fights at times. But can you be open and talk about your disagreements or do you hide how you really feel or sulk and ignore them?

• Can you say sorry? Everyone can make a mistake and can hurt a friend. It is important to genuinely apologise once you have hurt your friend. Sometimes you also have to say sorry, even if you weren’t in the wrong!

Good friends can make you happy, take care of you, help you when you are in problems, stop you from doing bad things and give you good advice. Look after the good ones, and avoid the bad eggs.