Remember Julian and Joanna Sant Fournier who came up with the Couple Cards? Well, this power couple hasn’t stopped there. They have also come up with the Friendship Cards. A card game designed to help young children (and even older ones) resolve conflict.
After the Couple Cards, Julian and Joanna Sant Fournier were approached by a group of Personal and Social Development (PSD) teachers, who wanted them to help them come up with a tool to address the issue of conflict between students.
The card game targets children aged eight and older. Each pack comes with four different sets of cards, guiding the players through a simple process of resolving conflict, encouraging them not to resort to physical confrontation.
The pair believe the card game could be a useful tool for teachers, who can incorporate it in their lessons without putting too much pressure on the children. The brightly illustrated cards make speaking up easier, since the children can playfully share their problems with their peers without making a big deal about it.
The rules of the game are simple: children identify how they are feeling and then move through a process of trying to understand what caused the problem, how it can be resolved and what needs to be done to make up. There are simply worded tips on the back of each card to help the children understand what they could be feeling and how to address the problems which were causing them to feel that way.
Nowadays, children are coming face-to-face with social problems, which they then take with them to school. They often find it difficult to come to terms with what they are going through and then they resort to bullying or other negative ways to vent their frustrations. Children with problems at home come to school and instead of opening up with their friends or teachers, they resort to bullying and causing trouble.
These cards seem to be working magic in schools and youth groups. They are also being used with adults even though the main aim was for children and young adults. What is more beautiful than the fact that these cards are helping many? It’s the fact that all the work put into creating these cards was done on a voluntary basis!!!
More information is available on www.friendshipcards.org or the Facebook page Friendship Cards.
