FRIENDSHIP IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

Human beings are social beings. Responsiveness is built in; we come into the world programmed to respond and relate to others. During early childhood, the main ingredients in forming friendships are opportunity and similarity. To become friends, children need to be available to each other for play and other activities. Children become good friends when they spend a lot of time playing together, sharing toys, and enjoying the same games and activities. Friendships are more likely to form when children are similar in characteristics such as age, gender, race, attitudes, beliefs, or even play styles. Children who are neighbors, relatives, or schoolmates spend more time with each other and therefore have more opportunities to form friendships. The friendships children have with each other are different than those they have with parents and relatives. Family relationships provide an ease, a closeness, a deep sense of intimacy. But they don't substitute for other relationships. Starting young and continuing through adulthood, friendships are among the most important activities of life.

Friendships are important in helping children develop emotionally and socially. They provide a training ground for trying out different ways of relating to others. Through interacting with friends, children learn the give and take of social behavior in general. They learn how to set up rules, how to weigh alternatives and make decisions when faced with tough situations. They understand  negative feelings such as , fear, anger, aggression and rejection. They learn how to win, how to lose, what's right and what's not. They learn about social standing and power - who's in, who's out, how to lead and how to follow, what's fair and what's not. They learn that different people and different situations call for different behaviors and they come to understand the viewpoints of other people. Friends provide companionship and stimulation for each other, and they find out who they are by comparing themselves to other children - who's bigger, faster, who can add better, who can catch better. They learn that they're both similar to and different from others. Through friendships and belonging to a group, children improve their sense of self-esteem. The solace and support of friends help children cope with troubling times and through changing times - moving up to a new school, entering adolescence, dealing with family stresses, facing disappointments.

Friendships are not just a luxury; they are a necessity for healthy psychological development. Research shows that children with friends have a greater sense of well-being, better self-esteem and fewer social problems as adults than individuals without friends. On the other hand, children with friendship problems are more likely than other children to feel lonely, to be victimized by peers, to have problems adjusting to school, and to engage in deviant behaviors.

citations: http://www.aboutourkids.org/articles/do_kids_need_friends

http://www.kidsmatter.edu.au/early-childhood/about-social-development/about-friendships/supporting-children-develop-friendships

http://www.education.com/reference/article/friendships-preschool-childhood-years/

FRIENDSHIP IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD

As children become more mature physically, cognitively, and emotionally, their social relationships with family and peers also mature and change. During middle childhood, peer friendships take on a more prominent role than ever before. Peer relationships can include friends at school, friends in the neighborhood, teammates or other co-participants in activities like Boy or Girl Scouts, and near-age siblings. During this middle developmental period, as communication and cognitive skills continue to improve, children develop increased interpersonal awareness. As a result, they become better at reading and responding to other kids' emotions, and understanding other kids' intentions and needs; why they behave in specific ways at specific times. These social skills lay the foundation for the formation of closer friendships

During middle childhood, kids become more competent and confident. Parents begin to place trust in the child, allowing him to take on daily tasks such as selecting his own clothes and making his own breakfast. Family friendships are still vital, but children are far less clingy at this age. While cognitive growth also plays an important role in this progression, a great deal of social and emotional growth also occurs during middle childhood. As children start school, their social world becomes much larger. Where most of their previous social interactions were primarily with family, the introduction of school opens up a whole new world of relationships with other people. This offers kids a much richer and deeper pool of social experiences with both familiar and unfamiliar people.

Friendships become increasingly important throughout the middle school years. While kids obviously still depend upon their parents and enjoy spending time with siblings, they also become more interested in building relationships with other people outside the family unit. Learning how to make and maintain friendships is an important part of the developmental process during this time. Few things can make a parent's heart ache more than to watch your child struggle to find friends or grapple with social rejection or even bullying behaviors from other kids. Fortunately, there are things that parents can do to ensure that their child is gaining the social competence that they need to succeed in school and later in life.

HOW ADULTS CAN ENSURE HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS:

Healthy friendships are marked by cooperation, kindness, trust, and mutual respect. So what should parents do if their child seems to be in an unhealthy friendship? Remembering that all friendships have their ups and downs can be helpful. The occasional conflicts or arguments are not necessarily a sign that the relationship is destructive or unhealthy. If, however, the friendship becomes a source of stress or anxiety, then it's time to take action. Parents should start by talking to their child and encouraging him to share his feelings with the friend. Adults should also help children understand the importance of walking away from the situation, especially if the friend is being physically or emotionally hurtful. Finally, parents and other adults can try to establish some distance between the child and the friend. For example, a teacher might choose to seat kids who are having conflicts apart from each other.

citations: http://www.sevencounties.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=37689&cn=1272

http://psychology.about.com/od/early-child-development/a/social-emotional-development-in-middle-childhood.htm

FRIENDSHIP IN ADOLESCENCE

As children enter into adolescence, the nature of their peer relationships undergoes significant change as teens spend increasingly more time in the company of their same-age friends. Adolescent friendships then gradually deepen in terms of levels of commitment, intimacy, and acceptance of differences among friends. Functioning in these evolving friendships has been linked with both negative outcomes ranging from depression to deviance and positive outcomes including pro social behavior and academic achievement. Adolescents like younger children, tend to choose friends who are like them and friends influence each other to become even more alike.

Friends are not necessarily of the same race or ethnicity. Friends do tend to have similar academic attitudes and performances and have similar status within the peer group. Since many characteristics that make children or adolescents attractive or unattractive to peers are genetically influenced, its not surprising that genes seem to play a part in choice of friends and may help explain why tend to have similar qualities. The choice of antisocial peers is mainly affected by environmental factors.

The intensity and importance of friendships as well as time spent with friends are probably greater in adolescence than at any other time in the life span. Friendships become more reciprocal. Early adolescents tend to rely more on friends than on parents for intimacy and support, and they share confidences more than younger friends. A stress on intimacy, loyalty and sharing marks a transition to adult like friendships. Intimacy with same sex friends increase during early to middle adolescence, after which it typically declines as intimacy with the other sex grows.

Adolescents’ perceptions of their close relationships also change with development, and this change in friendship views might also be expected to vary as a function of ego development level. Ego development is concurrently related to more secure states of mind with respect to attachment, and individuals who acquire higher levels of ego development report higher levels of interpersonal understanding and disclo

 The increased intimacy of adolescent friendship reflects cognitive as well as emotional development. Adolescents are now better able to express their private thoughts and feelings. They also can more readily consider another person’s point of view, and so it is easier for them to understand a friend’s thoughts and feelings. Confiding in a friend helps young people explore their own feelings, define their identity and validate their self worth. Friendship provides a safe place to venture opinions, admit weaknesses, and get help with problems.

The capacity of intimacy is related to psycho social development and social competence. Those who have close, stable, supportive friendships generally have a high opinion of themselves,  do well in school, are sociable, and are unlikely to be hostile, anxious or depressed. Shared confidences and emotional support seem to be more vital to female friendships than to male friendships. Boys focus less on conversations than on shared activity, usually sports and competitive games. Girls feel better telling a friend about an upsetting experience than boys do. Boys may express support by just spending time doing things together. Boys tend to gain self-esteem from competing with friends, and girls from helping them.

FRIENDSHIP IN EARLY ADULTHOOD

The old saying “Birds of a feather flock together” appears to hold some truth when it comes to viewing friendship among young adults. For example, the popular TV series Friends portrays how the six main characters share the same ethnicity, enjoy related activities and have similar levels of social skills. Commonality to an extent, is what fortifies friendships.                                         

Young adults value friendships to a large degree. This phase in life, when one has completed the transition from an adolescent to an adult, involves an increase in responsibilities. Yet, even with the burden of going to college, work, and starting a family, young adults consider maintaining friendships to be of importance. The quality and characteristics of friendships vary greatly. Friends may be emotionally intimate, or frequently have conflicts with each other. They can share a single interest, such as playing tennis, or have many shared interests and ways of thinking. Married couples may have a great number of friends, yet single adults rely more on friendship to fulfill their social needs. It is evident that those who have close friends show a greater sense of well being.                          

According to Robert Sternberg, friendship is characterized by intimacy, and not passion or commitment. Hence, one can feel close to another person, without feeling passionate arousal and permanence. Emotional intimacy may grow even greater than what existed during adolescence.

  Can men and women be just friends? At this juncture, adults have friends of both sexes. Yet, adults tend to prefer same sex friendships throughout their lives. They tend to have a larger number of friends of the same gender. Many friendships between men and women may not continue after college, or one friend gets married. Similar to earlier stages in life, women tend to confide more in each other, and talk about their feelings. Men are more inclined to participate in common activities and compete with each other, rather than confide in each other. Friendship between men and women are often intimate and men are likely to seek friendship with women whom they are attracted to. Around half of the students in colleges report romantic involvement with friends of the opposite sex.

Why are friendships so important to young adults? One reason is because it supports one’s development of identity, by providing opportunities for discussion on various topics and beliefs. It also helps people to put themselves in another’s shoes, and think through issues critically. Studies have shown that those who have many close friendships tend to be healthier and live longer than their socially isolated counterparts. The recipe for friendship is trust, respect and mutual understanding, and is guaranteed to create a bond that lasts a lifetime.

FRIENDSHIPS IN MIDDLE ADULTHOOD

In midlife, generally defined as the period between young adulthood and old age, friendships provide affection, companionship, understanding, and social support and therefore contribute to well-being. Friends can also affect the status, power, wealth, attitudes, behaviors, and values of middle-aged people. In addition to these consequences for individuals, midlife friendship patterns can affect society, such as by reinforcing the class structure and upholding the institution of marriage. Friendship is thus an important type of human relationship during this stage of life. This entry synthesizes what is known about the interactive processes exchanged between friends during midlife, the internal structure of midlife friendships, and how these friendships vary across contexts and individual demographic characteristics.

Although some people may remain friends for life; in actuality, there is a shifting process in friendship formations that we go through during adult life. Social address theories of adult friendship formation stipulate that friendship maintenance is easiest when two adults are at the same “developmental social address.” For example, two adults who are both married and have small children are more likely to forge relationships and maintain a friendship than an adult with children and a single, childless adult. Likewise, a friendship may be strained if one adult changes a developmental address (gets married) and another does not (stays single).

As compared with younger people, many middle aged people have less time and energy to devote to friends. They are too busy with family and work and with building up security for retirement. Still friendships do exist and are a strong source of emotional support and wellbeing, especially for women. Friendships often revolve around work and parenting. The quality of midlife friendships often makes up for what they lack in quantity of time spent. Especially during a crisis, such as a divorce, adults turn to friends for emotional support, practice guidance, comfort and talk. Middle-aged adults place value on the friends they do have. Their friends tend to mirror them in interests, activities and years of mutual experiences. Adults in middle adulthood tend to have a lower number of friends.

FRIENDSHIP IN LATE ADULTHOOD

"Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age"

There are several aspects of life that change as a person grows old. This write up explores few theories that explain ageing as well as affect ageing either directly or indirectly and the importance of friendships in late adulthood.

Ageism

~Prejudice against a person because of their age
OLDER ADULTS
~cultural emphasis on growth strength and progress
~respect for the youth
~increasing age segregation

Cellular clock theory

-Leonard Hayflick's (1977) theory that cells can divide a maximum of about 75 to 80 times and that, as we age, our cells become less capable of dividing.

Free-radical theory

- people age because when cells metabolize energy, the by-products include unstable oxygen molecules known as free radicals . The free radicals ricochet around the cells, damaging DNA and other cellular structures (Afanas'ev, 2009). The damage can lead to a range of disorders, including cancer and arthritis

What is activity theory?

The more active a person is throughout the corse of their life is directly related to the happiness felt in late adulthood--positive reflection (integrity)

How do the five senses changes in late adulthood?

Vision- visual acuity, color recognition, depth perception decline
~cataracts: thickening of lens
~Glaucoma: optic nerve damage
~Macular degeneration: deterioration of the retina
Hearing- degeneration of cochlea
smell and taste- loss of some ability
touch and pain- only minor change

What is Erikson's final stage of psychosocial development? Integrity vs Despair: realizing death is close people reflect and review upon their life I) -satisfaction: piecing together a positive review D)- Realizing one's life was not well spent, reflection is negative. characterized by isolation in early adulthood being unable to create meaningful relationships What is socio-emotional selectivity theory? More selective about contacts -maintaining close relationships with those who directly maximize their joy Withdrawal from certain social contact -cutting ties with people who don't maximize happiness or cause negativity Isolation does not equal despair -Done only to maximize happiness

What are marriages like in late adulthood?

~people who are still married have happier lives, being less stressful adding to positive health consequences

Social consequences of divorce

Weaken kinship ties when it occurs in later life, especially in the case of older men

What is the main reason older adults choose to cohabit?

~Companionship is the main reason why the number of Cohabiting older adults chose to live together
~followed closely by financial reasons- cost of living is less

What are benefits of friendship in late adulthood?

~having a group of close friends in late adulthood helps to lower mortality rates, and symptoms of disease
~less likely to go to a assisted living

What are the two other components of successful aging?

1.)    Productivity
-contribution to social network
-willingness to take on complex challenges
~New pursuits

2.)Life satisfaction
~sense of personal well being
~Perception is important
~Social comparisons

citations: 
http://quizlet.com/8560893/psych-late-adulthood-flash-cards/

http://rcgates.com/psyc/c24_pv.html

http://www.searchquotes.com/search/Late_Adulthood/