Children’s first friendship, at what age? How should it be treated?
As soon as you want to realize it, your child will already be socializing with other children and will soon make his first friend.
The human being is a social being from birth, our first socializations, during the first months of life, are carried out in our family. From the first minute of life, babies are forming emotional bonds , first with their mother, father, and then with their closest family.
Index
SOCIALIZE OUTSIDE THE FAMILY ENVIRONMENT
For at least the first 16 weeks of life, at a minimum, the baby will be surrounded by his family. After 4 months , many but not all – we cannot generalize – start their socializations outside the family environment, either because they must go to nursery school or because they are cared for by someone outside the family: babysitter, personal educator, etc.
THE NORMAL THING IS THAT THE FIRST FRIEND REACHES THE 4 YEARS
BOND OF FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN FAMILIES
We can also find cases of children who start kindergarten together, in the same classroom, with 4 months , 1 year , or 2 years , and that their families do make friends , therefore they go to the park together, they are still together the entire stage of early childhood education and they go on to the second cycle of early childhood education also together, that is, to school.
In these cases, at the beginning of P3 we could already say that the children are friends , since they have shared two years together.
THE FIRST FRIEND, OVER THREE YEARS
Of course, as I always say, talking about children can never be generalized. But from my experience, I could say that many of them meet their first friends in their first year of school , between the ages of three and four. If they adapt well to the group, if everything goes well, they begin to be more and more autonomous, and in the classroom they begin to have their first friendships, alone, without mom or dad.
It is very likely that our son or daughter when leaving school will spend all day talking to us about that or that special friend , with whom they will surely share many things throughout the day. They will always play together on the patio, in the classroom they will want to do the activities always together, or in the dining room, psychomotor room, computer room, etc.
There are times when the friendship or the feeling is so strong on the part of one of the two that the other can feel overwhelmed: they are stages, many times they idolize and at the same time they love each other madly or they get angry for drawing with the same color .
HOW SHOULD WE TREAT OUR CHILDREN’S NEW FRIENDS?
When our son / daughter talks to us about his / her special friend, or about a group of friends from school, whether they are three or four years old, we begin to realize that our children have a life independent of ours . They interact with people on a daily basis, share with them learning, games , music, dances, and much more, therefore they create affective bonds with them, while we are not present.
There may be cases in which some parents find it a bit difficult to overcome this stage, because it is to begin to accept that our baby grows, that he gets older, and this, let’s face it, we do not find it too funny. But normally it is something temporary, and then we see how our little one develops, how they like him in his class, how he shares with his friends, and the social skills that he practices with people of the same age , with the same doubts, worries, illusions, etc.
These first friends may sometimes forget, because life can separate us from them, they may change schools, or we may move, but I think that they will always occupy a hole inside us, and when they grow up it may still remain. friendship, but if not, that’s what parents are for, to remember how nice it was to share the first emotions of friendship, the first fights, or the first mischief.
What a beautiful friendship, how innocent and full of good intentions, the one that feels a heart so small in size, but so great in goodness!
Dr. Tabriella Perivolaris, Sara's mother and fan of fashion, beauty, motherhood, among others, about the female universe. Since 2018 she has been working as a copywriter, always bringing to her articles a little of her experience and experience as a mother and woman.