Friendships play a fundamental role in our lives, we are all committed to maintaining bonds of affection and trust, we need others to grow and lead a happy life, but what exactly is friendship?
Friendship is an emotional relationship based on the dimensions of trust and commitment of Stenberg’s theory, however, there is a great variety of what everyone thinks about friendly relationships, this is due to the constructive factors that exist around this concept. The subjectivity of each person. It will influence a lot, changing the criteria that define friendship.
- In general.
- For adults a friendship is not a one-way relationship.
- It must be two-way.
- Friendship implies mutual psychological satisfaction characterized by understanding the feelings and thoughts of both people.
- However.
- During childhood.
- We observe different friendships Below.
- We explain how friendly relationships evolve throughout life.
According to Damon and Fontes, friendship has different phases, each with its own specificities:
We are talking about the period between 0 and 2 years. At this point, it is difficult to talk about friendship in the strict sense, but we have the first approximations of social life, studies indicate that young children start and interact more with people they know than with people they do not know, this preference implies a gain of trust with those whom the child identifies as known.
In addition, children prefer to have relationships with people with whom they have had positive and pleasant experiences, rather than to maintain contact with those who represent a type of conflict, so we could talk about the beginning of friendship relationships, where the child chooses who he wants to exchange toys with and express a positive affection.
The preschool stage takes place between the ages of 2 and 6, just before the start of the first education, in this age group children have an egocentric vision when it comes to understanding and analyzing friendships, they do not distinguish their own perspective from that of others, because a theory of the mind has not yet developed.
Therefore, these friendly relationships are characterized by unstable encounters where rupture occurs easily, especially when there are interpersonal conflicts, children are usually friends with those who live near or their peers, in short, they are unstable relationships based on proximity and mainly directed and controlled by the parents or guardians of the children.
This phase ranges from when the child starts attending school through adolescence, between the age of 6 and 12. These friendships are characterized by maintaining a relationship of cooperation and mutual assistance.
At this age, children begin to understand others, abandoning their self-centered vision of friendship, hence they choose those who show affection and care about their needs and demands.
At this point, the concept of friendship is similar to that of most adults, relationships are more sustainable. If they stay until adolescence, a close and very emotional bond can be created.
This period begins around the age of 12 and lasts until the age of 18. Friendships are designed as adult relationships. Teenagers see friendship as a relationship based on mutual knowledge and where affection plays the lead role.
At this stage, friendships become much deeper, expressing values of loyalty, trust, intimacy and sincerity. Friends are chosen based on psychological characteristics and similar interests and hobbies.
Since adolescence, friendships have been enriched by the multiplicity of lived experiences, distance and occasional conflicts are no longer an obstacle to maintaining and enjoying the emotional bond created.
According to this classification, friendships change over time, influenced by the evolutionary development of each individual, we cannot forget that friendship is a subjective concept that we all build taking into account different variables, the important thing is to understand what friendship is for each of us. so that we can communicate appropriately and satisfactorily.