a significant change takes place in friendships at the onset of the 'tween'
(pre-teenage) years. Tweens are beginning to think about sexual relationships, and for this age group friendships may be a transitional area between home and sexual relationships. Friends act as both a refuge from sexual anxiety and a move towards sexual relationships.
Many nine-year-olds are not only beginning to make friends independent of the family's circle of friends, they are also becoming aware of degrees of friendships. As one said, 'I get invited to the parties but nobody asks me round... like for tea or anything.' This girl was aware of the subtle nuances in the difference between the kind of friend who gets invited to tea and other friends. She was longing to have a best friend, and because she didn't have one she considered herself 'mateless'.
We are right to be concerned about a nine- year-old who has difficulty in making friends, but should we worry about a child who does not have a best friend? And what does it mean to a club-aged child to have 'a best friend?'
Being popular versus having friends
Eleven-year-old Lauren's playworkers were concerned about her. She had been attending after-school club for three years. Initially she had seemed happy, but over the past 18 months she had become increasingly sad and irritable. 'She's a very popular girl,' said her key worker. 'There is no problem with friendships.'
Popularity does not necessarily equate with friendships. Lauren was popular because her wealthy parents could afford lavish treats. Lauren always had the latest of everything and her parents were generous to other children in an attempt to support Lauren's friendships. But Lauren felt she hadn't got a 'real friend' or a best friend, and she showed how, unconsciously, she understood her position when she said, 'I'm always the picker, I never get picked.' She felt that while she was always offering invitations to other children, she received few in return.
Children can be popular for all sorts of reasons, and popularity is not necessarily an indication of the quality of their relationships.
What is a best friend?
Many adults seem to need a circle of friends and also a particular friend with whom they enjoy a special empathy, affinity and trust. Some children share this need, like the ten- year-old asked to define the difference between a best friend and other friends, who said, 'A friend is someone who knows you and likes you and you like them. A best friend is someone who really knows you and really likes you.'
Other children may have a more nonchalant view, like the 12-year-old who saw a best friend as, 'Someone you see more often. It doesn't mean you like them better, you just see them more.' Tweens need a group of friends to whom they feel they belong and with whom they can share interests and practice identities, but a 'best friend' may not be crucial.
Attraction of opposites
Friends introduce children to change and diversity. They introduce each other to difference, whether in interests, ways of doing things, cultures or food. Sometimes the best friend can be an alter-ego for a child, someone who lives their unlived life.
Sara and Karen formed an intense friendship at holiday club, to the concern of Sara's parents. Sara was a quiet, well- behaved and diligent nine-year-old, while 11- year-old Karen could not have been more different.
Loud, brash and naughty, she had learned to live on her wits since her mother left home, and was prone to temperamental outbursts with playworkers. Sara's parents felt that she was a 'bad influence' on their daughter and wanted club workers to keep the girls apart.
This request interested the playworkers, since they all agreed that neither girl seemed to be influenced by the other. Sara's behaviour had not deteriorated - nor had Karen's improved. However, both girls seemed happier for being in each other's company. Asked what it was they liked about each other, Sara confided that she saw Karen as a heroine figure, free to be noisy and naughty and to argue with the adults - to do all the things Sara was terrified to do. Karen was more succinct. She shrugged and said, 'Well, Sara knows what's what.'
We could think about Sara and Karen's friendship as being based on curiosity. If Sara longed to be more naughty, then Karen was curious about how to be well-behaved. Their interest in each other lay in trying to understand how it would feel to be more like them.
We need to remember that friends are 'chosen' siblings. Children will often choose a friend to help them work out a relationship with a sibling or to help them to understand what it would have been like to have a sibling or a different kind of sibling.
Similar friends
Jack and Tom were a different kind of 'best friends' pair. They met at an inner city Saturday morning club for gifted children. They shared a passionate interest in insect life, and this made a dramatic difference to their self-esteem. Jack explained, 'At my school, I'm just a sad geek, but now I feel like I'm the same as someone else.'
Tweens are beginning to think about how to separate from their family. In order to do so, they have to establish their identity as a distinct and unique person. This can be a terrifying process and having a best friend who is 'all the same' can be a solution to the fear 'I don't know who I am'. As Tom said, 'When no one else was interested in insects, then I used to wonder who I was.'
Wanting a best friend
'I can't do anything because I haven't got a best friend to go out with,'
says 12-year-old Jason. He illustrates how friends can be so important to his age group because they may fear it is impossible to enjoy any activity alone. No one likes to see a child feeling lonely. But making friends is rather like falling in love. You can't be taught to do it, you just have to put yourself into circulation and let it happen.
However, you can help such a child to reflect on their part in making friends by asking them what they think it is about them that stops someone being their best friend. Jason gave an interesting reply to this question.
'Well, I'm a bit bossy, I like to be in charge and the others don't like that.'
Jason's playworker was able to redefine 'being bossy' as having 'good ideas'. She and Jason were able to think of ways he could put his good ideas across to other children without seeming bossy. This led to helping him to think about what there is about him that other children may like and that may want them to be his best friend.
Falling out
Sally and Emma had fallen out again. 'I have to be the same as Sally or she hates me and gets mad and tells everyone not to be my friend,' explained Emma.
There seems to be a sex difference in the nature of friendships of children of this age. Boys tend to play together in groups centred around a common interest, often sport. Girls' friendships tend to centre around sharing confidences. The more secrets shared, the closer the friendship. This may be why girls are more likely to form friendships in threesomes, which seem to be a particular feature of tweens' friendships.
Threesomes provide girls with an opportunity to explore issues of power and status. It is likely that one of the three is always going to be feeling left out, or one is demanding that the other two can't be friends with each other and with her. Girls can become possessive and think that intimacy and loyalty have to be exclusive. They can be demanding of a best friend and push the relationship to its limits by insisting on 'sameness' on every issue.
Adults may be frustrated with these 'tiffs'. We can be drawn into spending time and energy trying to understand the quarrel, only to find that two hours later the girls are best friends again! Remember:
* Learning to deal with being left out is part of growing up.
* Children's friendships are like adult relationships - they are not necessarily permanent; they run their course.
* Resist the urge to orchestrate children's friendships. It may be more important to help them find ways of sorting things out themselves.
Andrea Clifford-Poston is an educational therapist and author of The Secrets of Successful Parenting - Understanding what your child's behaviour is really telling you (How-To Books, 9.99)
