Friendships also provide a supportive context in which self-exploration, emotional growth, and moral development can occur. Of course, learning and social support also result from relationships with parents, teachers, and other adults. But it is among other children that children learn how to interact with equals. Also, it is with peers that children spend a very high proportion of their waking hours. In Part 1, we discussed how important friendships are to children's development.
Children learn valuable skills while interacting with other children.
Many children who lack friends have serious problems during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. In this article we will discuss why some children are accepted by their peers while others are rejected. There are many different reasons why children are disliked by their peers. When trying to find ways to help these children, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking about what they do that bothers others. This focuses only on reducing these behavior problems, but as we discussed in our last article, most rejected children also lack important skills.