“A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; whoever finds one has found a treasure.”Sirach 6:14
As Catholic school educators, we want the children in our care to walk in friendship with Christ and then to carry this relational template into all their other friendships. Findings from the decade of the brain and interpersonal neurobiology reveal to us that the developing brain is first and foremost a relational organ, suggesting the crucial role of friendship in the gradual unfolding of healthy childhood brain development. Every day, teachers and administrators swim in an invisible ocean of relationships (Olson, 2014). The neurosequential model of brain development and information processing teaches us that if we only attend to relationships in a peripheral way, a large percentage of students will have unnecessary difficulty in their learning (Olson, 2014). Children need to feel emotionally safe in their environment and have a sense of belonging in their relationships for good growth, and, as such, friendship is foundational to all spiritual, social, and cognitive development.
The book of Sirach, unique in our Catholic scripture, carries themes of wisdom, friendship, and virtue to adapt to the practicalities of everyday living. Therefore, it is not without coincidence that friendship and the virtue of prudence, “the crown of virtues” (Thomas Aquinas), weave together to create a capacity for interpersonal connectedness. There is, of course, a neurodevelopmental pathway from secure parent-child attachments to preschool and elementary school friendship, to the need for a circle of friends in navigating the “second window of neurological opportunity” in middle school, and to peer and dating relationships in high school, which lay the foundation for healthy adult love. Therefore, practical wisdom in friendship, perfected in the daily living of baptismal grace (CC 1262-1274), is the key to moral maturity. Dr. Stanley Greenspan, one of the first interpersonal neurobiologists, in his book Playground Politics: Understanding the Emotional Life of Your School-Age Child, places peer relationships and the practice of complex thinking skills within these friendships at the center of childhood emotional development because children have a core drive to attach. During peer interactions, children are, in part, moving away from the influence of adults toward developing their own sense of identity. These complex thinking skills include taking the perspective of others, showing empathy, being fair, navigating rivalries, and building skills in turn-taking, being resilient in the face of rejection, being trustworthy, and understanding in turn who to trust, and how to discern true friends in the midst of adversity (e.g., problem-solving, quarrels, sorrow, and misfortune). One can readily see that the theological and cardinal virtues (i.e., temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice) are THE necessary guideposts in navigating the developmental rigors of friendship.
Today’s children, however, are growing up in the information age of complexity and loneliness and are taking refuge in superficial and virtual friendships (i.e., number of friends and likes on social media; meeting an online group to play video games) that do little to help them find a sense of true belonging and further leave them feeling anxious about navigating the real world of true kinship that has depth, intimacy, and meaning. In his recent bestseller, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Haidt, 2024), Jonathon Haidt outlines how our current crisis in childhood well-being arrived very quickly and is profoundly undermining childhood brain wiring. Smartphones, social media, and internet access are claiming the fundamental superpower of childhood neuroplasticity and undermining the wiring of healthy brain development. Simultaneously, adults are underprotecting children from overstimulating and toxic content on the internet. Smartphone use and technology have essentially removed children from a play and friendship-based childhood that has always been the basis for developmental neuroplasticity and character growth. Haidt (2024) goes on to describe how the overprotection of children in the real world leads to fewer and fewer opportunities to engage in risk-taking and unsupervised play, where they might practice virtue and the complex thinking skills necessary for navigating their friendships. Besides limiting phone use until after the second window of neurological opportunity (i.e., age 14), Haidt (2024) strongly suggests that parents and educators give children more opportunities for unsupervised and risky play. Not an easy task when so many parents are raising children by micromanaging every activity and every relationship and seeing popularity as the path to happiness. Preparing the path for the child rather than the child for the path, as the saying goes. We would posit that children do need specific instruction in practicing virtue and building friendship skills, and then corollary opportunities to practice, fail, and succeed on the playground and in other unstructured situations for robust brain wiring to occur.
For educators, being able to harness the invisible network of relationships in their classrooms creates the necessary context for learning and behavioral competence. A teacher who readily responds to the small, invisible, relational cues in his/her classroom shows a child that they can be relied on to create a holding environment where the child feels safe, seen, and soothed. Creating such a warm, supportive, and encouraging classroom atmosphere through emphasizing the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity) is the beginning of fostering the security that comes with friendship. Research does suggest that while children need unsupervised and unstructured play, they also need specific instruction in building skills and using tools in approaching friendship (Cozolino, 2013; Schafer and DiGeronimo, 2000). Children respond to discussions about why friendship is so important to building healthy minds, fostering a sense of belonging and self-esteem, and circumventing the destructive effects of bullying and exclusion. Schools that embed the cardinal/moral virtues in daily life nurture the gradual unfolding of YES Brain (Siegel and Bryson, 2019) fundamentals that are necessary for healthy relational capacity and good character that are often reflected in how we treat others and the quality of our friendships:
Temperance/Balance: Children learn to regulate their emotions and behavior when it comes to engaging in play and the conflicts that inevitably arise. They come to understand that they can’t use their emotion to control others or situations, but that emotions are information and an important part of solving problems.
Fortitude/Resilience: Children learn to take the good with the bad in friendships and to practice being resilient in the face of rejection and hurt while learning forgiveness and reconciliation in navigating relationships. Fortitude also helps children to understand how to resist peer pressure in friendship.
Prudence/Insight: Developing a strong reflective capacity allows children to learn to take the perspective of their friends while simultaneously understanding their own needs and wants in relationships. Prudence cultivates a capacity for mindfulness, good decision-making (e.g., avoiding gossip), and deciding how to engage to foster good outcomes with friends (e.g., smiling, giving a compliment, saying hi, praying for a friend).
Justice/Empathy: Building empathy is important in being attuned to the needs and suffering of others to engage with kindness and responsiveness. Learning to be fair, to share, and to give others their due in play is fundamental to playground politics and all friendships. Focusing on the virtue of Justice helps children understand how to be loving in words and in actions (e.g., seeing and seeking the good in others through virtue spotting).
Children learn and behave through emotional and relational engagement in their educational experiences. For this reason, we often say that the teacher-student relationship is the scientific center of the classroom that most certainly extends to the playground and friendships. Catholic school educators who honor and respect “the invisible classroom” while teaching virtue create a space, the metaphorical garden, where children learn to walk in friendship with Christ and with each other to build a lifelong capacity for love, respect, and mutuality. This is the authentic and true treasure spoken of in the book of Sirach.
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14
Sister John Dominic Rasmussen, OPis the executive director at Openlight Media.sjdr@sistersofmary.org
Karen Villa, Ph.D.is a neuropsychologist.kkvphd@gmail.com