Welcome to the All About Parenting Blog Carnival for February! Your About.com Parenting guides and other parenting and family bloggers from across the net have pulled together some of their best strategies on making friends to share with you in this month's blog carnival on friendship.

Friendship is so important. Where would we be without our friends after all? Friends share our laughter, tears, challenges, and our successes. Friends help us create happy memories we can enjoy for years to come. Like a favorite "feel good" movie, remembering those moments can make us feel young again, comfort us like a treasured heirloom quilt, and make difficult times seem somehow less overwhelming. In fact, Longevity guide Sharon O'Brien reports researchers are finding that friends are possibly more important than family to seniors in improving longevity.

Friends are indeed important for your child with a disability, his brothers and sisters, and for parents too. As parents, we often place our own needs at the bottom of our priority list, but our Working Moms guide, Katherine Lewis, points out that need not be the case. We can create those wonderful, enduring friendships, even with our over-stuffed schedules. Elizabeth Scott, Stress Management guide, shows how friends can help mothers deal with everyday stress. Having trouble keeping up with your childless friends? Soni Sangha offers ideas to keep in touch for Stay-at-Home Moms. Parenting Special Needs Children guide, Terri Mauro, sheds light on the importance of avoiding toxic friends and family.

Finding, tending, and keeping friends may not come naturally to our children, but these are skills anyone can learn. If your child is struggling to make friends, Wise Parenting blogger Jacqueline Wong reassures us that this is a problem many children face, and there are several important ways you can help. It's true that children with learning disabilities and other types of disabilities may face more challenges than others, and there are effective strategies you can use to overcome this hurdle. If your child has a friend or classmate with a disability, help her learn ways to nurture these friendships as well.

Learning how to find good friends is an important first step in helping your child choose positive friends. Pediatrics guide Dr. Vincent Iannelli tells us why making and keeping friends is "one of the important missions of middle childhood. Find some helpful printables on making and being a friend by Special Education guide Sue Watson.

Keeping friendships alive will require some work on your child's part, and Childcare guide Robin McClure shares important must-dos for parents supporting their kids' friendships. While planning activities to support your child's budding friendship, check out these great ideas to entertain children on a budget during the winter months by Debbie from Debtdestroyer.com.

Tending friendships can be a challenge at all ages, and particularly so in the teen years. Teen Advice guide Jessica Stevenson has helpful tips to help teens deal with friendship pitfalls such as jealousy, making friends at a new school, approaching a friend who is in trouble, and other difficult situations. Denise Witmer, Parenting Teens guide, has advice for parents on what to do when you do not like your child's friends. Jennifer O'Donnell, About.com's guide to Parenting Tweens, has advice to help tweens make and keep friends as well.

Finally, Children's books are good tools to teach your child to be a good friend and to choose a good friend because they offer the opportunity for children to learn at home before being placed in social situations. Reading books that model positive friendships and social skills can help your child learn important qualities of friendship without "preaching." Elizabeth Kennedy, of Children's Books, has helpful Valentine's Day selections that model positive relationships.