It is not only love relationships that bring a complex mixture of pain and happiness. Same sex-friendships also tend to become more intense over teenage years and change somewhat in quality. Childhood friendships tend to be focused on shared activities. During adolescence, there is a greater concern over reciprocity and loyalty, and over emotional sharing and exchange of confidences. On the whole, this emotional intimacy is more marked in girls than in boys.
Girls also differ from boys in being more likely to have relatively exclusive same-sex friendships.
As a result, tensions and rivalries tend to be more common among teenage girls than boys. During their teens, many young people become moody and difficult and often clash with their parents over hairstyle, dress, curfew, and type of friends. However, in the majority of families, these stresses occur against the background of a generally good parent-adolescent relationship. Indeed, these disagreements may have positive effects. In most cases, they are a reflection of psychological growth rather than dysfunction.