Friendship at various stages of Life

Introduction

Friendship is a very unique relationship because people get to choose their friends, the people they associate with. Friendships can have various meanings at various stages in life and can look quite different at different ages. As people grow older they develop and maintain friendships that they either had/built since childhood or develop new ones every now and then. People have a lot of different sets of friends, some at school, some in their locality, someone from other hobby classes or through family.

Everyone has a more active circle of friends where They engage with the most and also relate with a lot. Apart from family, enjoyment with friends also provides a greater underlying sense of security and support and so a lot of studies have emphasized the importance of friendship in life and how different aspects like common interests, social involvement can play a role in one’s life. As children grow older, they need a closer set of friends whom they can share their secrets with that they cannot usually tell any other adult, and your friends play the biggest role. Friends can in fact have such an impact on your life that they can either help you with your growth or absolutely diminish it with peer pressure. 

And as people grow older into adults, people need fewer but more intimate relationships in their life that apart from their spousal and family relationships. The circle of friends usually grows smaller as one grows up but they are all closer than ever.  

Friendship in Childhood  

By three years of age, children regularly start to engage in activities with other children at either their play group or in school and start to mingle with people who have common interest. Surprisingly at this age some children do have a clear idea about who their friends are and can even name them. Friends are the biggest motivators for children to attend school and play group and they are even encouraged to have play dates with friends after school. 

However by four years of age, children can differentiate between their friends and other children that they know in their peer group/circle. Children by now are able to differentiate between the people like and the ones that they don’t really get along well with and hence have developed an even clear idea about who their friends are. 

Childhood friendships are a lot simpler than any other friendships at any other age because children who play with other children assume that they automatically become friends and in this process they build the skills that are necessary to build friendships in the future. Skills like sharing, cooperating, listening to others, taking turns are a few that helps a person develop more secure friendships in the future. 

Friendship in Pre-Adolescents  

Age of 7–9 children start to reciprocate and understand other children’s feelings around them making them more sociable. Children in the pre-adolescent stage build friendships on the basis of the give-and-take concept where is their childhood learning of sharing comes into play. At this age, children learn how to evaluate their own and other children’s behaviour and decide whom to mingle with on the basis of that. Rough patches can often occur in the stage because of the overwhelming emotions and new set of parameters that come into play in friendship at this age.

Friendships in Adolescence  

Friendships are incredibly important during adolescence because during this time, young people have a need to feel the sense of acceptance and belonging to a certain group or to certain people. Strong friendships can really develop and maintain confidence of a person the friendship is right. 

It is very common to find teenagers spending longer time on the phone with the best friend. The best friend may be the one who is new and formed only 2 days before. This only shows that the intensity of friendship is greater in adolescence than at any other time in their lives. 

In early adolescence, friends are more intimate and supportive. Adolescents regard loyalty as more critical to a friendship and they share more with their friends. Adolescents are more capable than younger children, do consider others point of views and understand their friend's thoughts and feelings. 

Gender has a significant amount of effect on the kind of friendships as well. Emotional support is generally vital to female friendships throughout life but boys tend to count more people as their friends than girls do. This is sometimes also because the male friendships are often less close than the female friendships and can offer last longer as well.

Adolescents who tend to have close friends are high in self esteem, consider themselves competent and do well in school. Friends tend to have similar status in a larger peer group. Similarity is more important to friendship in adolescence than in a later life. This is because they need support from people who are like them. This need for support also shows in the way adolescents often imitate each others behaviour and are influenced by peer pressure.

A lot of studies show that most adolescents who were integrated into friendship networks had better mental health compare to others who were not as closely knit. People in school had more number of depressive symptoms if they were not surrounded by a good healthy set of friends.

If people are surrounded by a good set of friends during their teenage years there is a higher chance of them having better self-esteem, lower rates of anxiety, happier, stronger emotional regulation skills, and even have improved cognitive function. Teenage friendships are usually the source of building good amount of empathy and feelings of trust towards each other, which helps build secure relationships in the future. 

Friendships in teenagers can also help children deal with stress that sometimes adults cannot understand. The stress of school, domestic issues and even problems with other peers can be shared amongst friends and the stress can definitely get better. 

Friendships in Adulthood

The time we will reach adulthood; the concept of introvert/extrovert is almost always majorly accepted by individuals. But whether they are into words, extra words or social butterflies’ adults have at least a friend or 2 to share their life with. Unlike childhood, it can be quite difficult to make friendships are adulthood because it is not as simple as going and sharing an eraser with someone and becoming friends with them. Adults take a lot of time to open up with people, which also depends on the kind of experiences they have had in the past with friends and other people in general but children our way quicker in trusting a new person. As we get older, especially after college it gets difficult to meet like-minded people and can be quite challenging. However, if a little effort is put into maintaining old friendships then some friendships can also last a lifetime. 

Adult friendship are quite hard to maintain because of the busy schedule of each individual but can be extremely supportive and act as an anchor in life if it is with the right people. Personal growth is also possible with the right kind of friends and it is easier to stay on the productive side of life if you don’t have any wrong company pulling you down. 

Friendship and Old-age 

Friendships in old age are quite complicated because a lot of people are passing away and it is harder to keep in touch with everyone because of your own ongoing issues related to old age. Although there are people who meet their old friends once in a while or develop a new set of friends in their building or the locality that they are living in but it is harder because of the amount of grief that comes ever so frequently. People in old age choose to play bingo, Housie or other cognitive stimulation games for passing time with their friends.  

Regardless of the age of the individual, friends play an important part in everyone’s life and without them or without any proper social support, life can seem quite dull or meaningless to some people. Friendship add some kind of social meaning and familiarity to one’s life which can help a person anchor slowly throughout life. 

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