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When I was a child, my sister and I used to get together with the neighbor kids and create shows. There would be numerous and varied acts, multiple costume changes, and a shifting cast. We created tickets and offered refreshments for our parent audience members. Preparing the show involved inspiration, arguments, and occasional tears, and the performance invariably had calamities like falling curtains and wandering toddlers, but somehow the show went on, and we all enjoyed the final bows.
For most adults, some of our fondest memories of childhood involve the times we spent playing with friends. In some sense, friendship is what childhood is all about. Friends are not only a source of fun; they also help children grow in meaningful ways.
Here are some of the things that children can gain through friendships:
1) Self-Esteem. Friends help children begin to discover who they are outside the family. Friendships are based on common interests, so by selecting friends, children declare something about who they are: “My friends and I play baseball” or “We all like the Harry Potter books!” When children have a friend who likes them, it can also help them to see themselves as likeable.
2) Coping. A friend is an ally. Having a friend means it’s easier to cope with disappointments. Children who have at least one reciprocal friend are less likely to become depressed.
3) Problem Solving. Friendships give children lots of opportunities to work out disagreements. This gives kids a chance to practice skills of persuasion, negotiation, compromise, acceptance, and forgiveness. There's even some evidence that, over time, having a close friend is linked to improvements in knowledge of effective problem-solving strategies. A study by Gary Glick and Amanda Rose at the University of Missouri found that from fall to spring of one school year, children with high quality friendships increased how much they said they would use helping strategies such as talking over a problem with a friend and decreased how much they said they’d use disengaged strategies such as distraction or pretending the problem didn’t exist.
4) Empathy. Probably the most important benefit of friendship is that it encourages children to move beyond self-interest. Caring about a friend, or even just wanting to play with that friend can help children reign in selfish impulses and encourage caring responses. If a friend isn’t having fun, she’ll take her ball and go home! So, to maintain a friendship, children need to learn to recognize and respond positively to their friend’s feelings.
Friendships are fun and painful, exciting and frustrating, challenging, enjoyable, and unpredictable—kind of like life. Whether children are putting on a show, negotiating where base is during a game of tag, or deciding which videogame to play together, they are developing the skills they will use through out their lives. What stands out in your memories of playing with friends as a child?
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© Eileen Kennedy-Moore, PhD. Google+ Twitter: psychauthormom
Eileen Kennedy-Moore, PhD, is an author and clinical psychologist in Princeton, NJ (lic. # 35SI00425400). She frequently speaks at schools and conferences about parenting and children’s social and emotional development. www.EileenKennedyMoore.com
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Dr. Kennedy-Moore's books and videos:
-- Have you ever wanted a parenting course you could do at YOUR convenience?Check out this fun and fascinating audio/video series on children’s feelings and friendships from The Great Courses®: Raising Emotionally and Socially Healthy Kids. || Topics include: Teaching Kids to Care; Developing Genuine Self-Esteem; How Kids Manage Anxiety and Anger; Playing Well With Others; Growing Up Social in the Digital Age. VIDEO preview.
On sale 70% off at: www.TheGreatCourses.com/Kids
-- Smart Parenting for Smart Kids: Nurturing Your Child's True Potential || Chapters include: Tempering Perfectionism; Building Connection; Developing Motivation; Finding Joy. VIDEO preview.
-- The Unwritten Rules of Friendship: Simple Strategies to Help Your Child Make Friends || Chapters include: The Shy Child; The Little Adult; The Short-Fused Child; The Different Drummer.
-- What About Me? 12 Ways To Get Your Parents' Attention Without Hitting Your Sister. VIDEO preview.
Growing Friendships blog posts are for general educational purposes only. They may or may not be relevant for your particular situation. You’re welcome to link to this post, but please don’t reproduce it without written permission from the author.
photo credit: “Personitas / Little people” by Alexander Andrade / CC BY 2.0
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For further reading:
Buhrmester, D., & Furman, W. D. (1986). The changing functions of friends in childhood: A neo-Sullivan perspective. In V. Derlega & B. Winstead (Eds.), Friendship and social interaction (pp. 41–62). New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.
Bukowski, W. M., Laursen, B., & Hoza, B. (2010). The snowball effect: Friendship moderates escalations in depressed affect among avoidant and excluded children. Development and Psychopathology, 22, 749-757.
Glick, G. C., & Rose, A. J. (2011). Prospective associations between friendship adjustment and social strategies: Friendship as a context for building social skills. Developmental Psychology, 47, 1117-1132.
Rubin, K.H. (2004). Three things to know about friendship. Newsletter International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development , 46(2), 5-7. Available for download at: http://www.rubin-lab.umd.edu/pubs/Downloadable%20pdfs/kenneth_rubin/Fri…
