“A friend is somebody you need bad, and sometimes he is very busy but he helps you anyway. A friend is somebody who likes me and I like them back. You could be friends for a long time, like twenty weeks.”
(A 9 year old boy’s explanation of what a friend is to him.)
Anita Gurian, noted psychologist recently wrote an excellent article: “Friends and Friendships” about the meanings of friendships. It’s interesting to read how young children’s perception of friendship changes over time. Gurian comments that at four years of age, children define a friend as someone who happens to be near them or whose toys they like. Five year olds and six year olds, she explains, focus on their own needs. They begin to realise that someone else may have a different point of view, but they don’t realise that friendship is an ongoing process.
By age 9 and 10, children see that friendships are an ongoing collaboration that allows them to see the other person’s point of view, share feelings, help each other and show interest in each other’s activities but may exclude others. At this age, children are also less reliant on the security of family and they form ties with their peers. From 12 years of age, teenagers recognize and value the complexity of human relationships. This change is evident from a 12 year old girl’s quote about her friend:
(A 9 year old boy’s explanation of what a friend is to him.)
Anita Gurian, noted psychologist recently wrote an excellent article: “Friends and Friendships” about the meanings of friendships. It’s interesting to read how young children’s perception of friendship changes over time. Gurian comments that at four years of age, children define a friend as someone who happens to be near them or whose toys they like. Five year olds and six year olds, she explains, focus on their own needs. They begin to realise that someone else may have a different point of view, but they don’t realise that friendship is an ongoing process.
By age 9 and 10, children see that friendships are an ongoing collaboration that allows them to see the other person’s point of view, share feelings, help each other and show interest in each other’s activities but may exclude others. At this age, children are also less reliant on the security of family and they form ties with their peers. From 12 years of age, teenagers recognize and value the complexity of human relationships. This change is evident from a 12 year old girl’s quote about her friend:
“We understand we’re both individuals and have different feelings about things. No matter how stupid my ideas are, like when I’m working on a project, my friend still listens and she doesn’t tease me about it. You take a chance with a good friend; you can’t be mad at her when she goes out with other friends too.”
Not all teenagers are as understanding as this young girl and often changing friendships become a source of conflict and misery for teenagers, particularly if they feel they are being excluded by a ‘friend’ or from a group of friends. There is a great deal written about bullying behaviours and young people are very quick to make judgments about bullying behaviours these days. However, sometimes it’s not so much about bullying behaviour, as much as a fear of rejection and a lack of confidence in a young person that causes them to struggle socially with other children. As one psychologist points out:
“Confidence, most would agree, makes social life a lot smoother. It also makes it a lot safer too.”
Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that some young people do not exhibit bullying behaviours, but it seems to me that many people use the word ‘bullying’, when in reality they are talking about a falling out of two or more friends; there is a difference. Bullying behaviours are persistent and relentless behaviours, designed to demoralise and demean another person either physically or verbally.
A lack of social skills, on the other hand, can result in some form of rejection or difficulty in making and keeping friends. The point being, that the friends are not being ‘bullies’, they are exhibiting normal relationship behaviour, where friendships change and are like shifting sands of allegiance. Friends fall into and out of friendship for no particular reason – sometimes justified and in other cases not.
We now know, from extensive research carried out by the National Institute of Health in the 1990s, that our brains undergo a massive reorganisation between our 12th and 25th years. According to a recent article: “The New Science of the Teenage Brain” in the “National Geographic”, (October 2011 issue), the brain doesn’t grow very much (it’s already 90% of its full size) but the brain undergoes extensive remodelling, resembling a network and wiring upgrade.
This process of maturation, once thought to be finished by elementary school continues throughout adolescence. Stronger links also develop between the hippocampus, a sort of memory directory, and frontal areas that set goals and weigh different agendas; as a result, we get better at integrating memory and experience into our decisions. According to Dobbs, these connections allow us to generate and weigh up far more variables and agendas than before.
This development of the brain, allows us to get better at balancing impulse, desire, goals, self-interest, rules, and ethics, generating behaviour that is more complex and sometimes, (not as often as most parents would hope for but none-the-less), more sensible. Psychologists tell us that excitement, novelty, risk taking and the company of peers does add up to doing foolish new stuff with friends, however; on the flipside, these same traits define adolescence make us more adaptive as human beings.
Parents can help young children develop better social skills and in turn help your son or daughter develop more self-confidence. Building greater resilience is also crucial at this developmental stage and parents can best do this by allowing your child to try and resolve an issue with a friend without the parent intervening. If your child asks for help, then of course it is appropriate to sit down, listen to the problem and help your son or daughter develop appropriate strategies. Young children may need to practise saying the right words to communicate to another child how they are feeling and parents can certainly help in this regard.
Research shows that those children with the most confidence, adept social skills and good behaviour will make more friends and keep more friends. Some suggestions and tips to give your son or daughter for making good friends, by psychologist Dr Angela Wilson:
· Smile when you see a person you know or recognize.
· Use a person’s name when talking to him or her.
· Ask friends for their phone number(s) so you can telephone them and their e-mail address so you can message them.
· Find out what they like and talk to them about things that interest them.
· Ask them about their favourite piece of music or a favourite book they have read or their favourite sport or their favourite place.
· Be interested in the other person.
· Discover things you may share in common, like playing handball.
· Talk a little about yourself, but do not talk about very personal things until you have known the person for some time.
· Remember, you have to make an effort and put out the hand of friendship.
· Make sure you do what you have said you will do – always keep your promise.
· Be prepared to admit when you are wrong.
· Say sorry if you think you may have hurt someone’s feelings.
· Be prepared to laugh with your friends at yourself when you do or say something unusual or silly. Say something like “Oops, silly me!”
· Remember that most friends are just like you. They may forget to do things or they may forget to ring you. Nobody is perfect. Be forgiving.
There is a PowerPoint presentation on “What it is to be a good friend” on my blog that I used on Assembly this week; parents may wish to view this presentation and discuss it with your son or daughter.
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