Friendship important to senior citizens
The benefits from friendships are evident at every stage in life.
Small children want playmates, school-age children choose a best friend, adolescents strive for peer acceptance as they seek independence outside the family circle, and adults rely on friendships for fun, leisure time, as well as support and companionship.
Changes in the family structure have made family counselors aware of the strong need for friends among the aged.
Since many elderly people live in nursing homes or retirement villages, their contact with family members may be limited. So the aged’s need for companionship and emotional support necessarily shifts to acquaintances.
Often the elderly people must make new friends in a nursing or retirement home setting many miles from their former neighborhood, in a new city or even in a different state.
Most friendships are relationships between two people who have similar interests, common concerns or experiences, compatible personalities, a shared situation or who are dependent on each other.
Studies of the elderly have shown that just one close friendship can relieve the depression and loneliness that often accompanies people who must give up their home and live in a different environment.
Even a close relationship with adult children does not replace the need for shared time with someone of the same age or who may have experienced a similar pattern in life.
As someone once said, you acquire relatives, but you get to choose your friends.
Cultivating new friends may be difficult for those who have maintained the same set of friends throughout their lives. Keeping those old friendships alive through calls, letters or occasional visits requires time and effort. But even reinforcing old friendships will not replace the need for friends within their living center.
Most retirement residences provide opportunities for establishing new relationships through classes in bridge, arts and crafts, game times and a variety of entertaining programs.
Still, it takes skills to form new friendships. Those who have not developed the nurturing qualities may need the assistance of a counselor to help them connect with a resident who shares their ideas. Therapeutic benefits from friendships increase quality of life.
New friends can be based on keeping confidences, sharing memories, reliving similar experiences or simply feeling the comfort of someone who shows they care.
You can be a friend to someone older or younger, someone who came from a different background. A common thread may weave a beautiful tapestry, but a vivid strikingly different thread may weave a new pattern. Friends enrich your life.
The most important quality for friendship is mutual trust and the feeling that you are appreciated for yourself.
