Children\u2019s points of view and ideas have changed the way I think about many subjects. Friendship is one of them. I think that\u00a0children\u2019s thoughts and observations regarding friendship are particularly insightful because friendship is so central in their lives.\u00a0Especially once they begin school, children spend most of their waking hours with their peers, much more so than do adults.\u00a0Learning how to develop and sustain friendships is one of the principal tasks of childhood Children\u2019s perspectives about friendship should therefore of particular interest to adults.<\/p>\n
The following conversation is excerpted from a longer conversation that appears in\u00a0Seen and Not Heard.<\/em>\u00a0The discussion, with a group of ten-year-old students, began with a student asking whether it’s important always to show up for your friends’ events or if it’s acceptable if you, for example, just want to be alone, not to attend an event that is significant to one of your friends.<\/p>\n Jade: “It\u2019s okay to want to be alone. If your friend is having a birthday party, and it\u2019s not like you don\u2019t like them or anything, but you don’t want to go. You\u2019re not trying to hurt their feelings. You just don\u2019t want to spend time at that and so you don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Noah: “I actually disagree with that. You don’t do that. If it’s your friend and it’s their birthday, you don’t just say, ‘Oh, I can\u2019t go to your birthday party because I want to be alone.’ You don’t do that. It’s your friend, so it’s worth it. You don\u2019t just miss something like that.”<\/p>\n Beth: \u201cIf you just feel kind of lonely and down, and it\u2019s a birthday party with a lot of people or even not a lot of people, but you just don\u2019t feel like working yourself up to it. If you want to be alone, then if they\u2019re a really good friend, they\u2019ll probably understand.\u201d<\/p>\n Scarlett: “I would feel disappointed and sad if a friend didn\u2019t come to my party, but I would think they probably had a good reason. It might not be as much fun without them, but I should respect them.\u201d<\/p>\n Holly: \u201cIf it was my best friend, I would feel upset. Why would you not come to my party just because you want to be alone? But if it was a friend that I just met, I wouldn\u2019t be as disappointed. If the reason was that a good friend just wanted to be alone, that would make me feel sad.\u201d<\/p>\n The children assess whether different reasons for an action matter.<\/p>\n Holly claims that the closer the friend, the better the reason should be for not showing up. I agree.\u00a0If I threw a big party for a significant birthday and a close friend didn’t attend due to an important competing obligation, I would understand.\u00a0But if the friend\u2019s non-attendance was because the evening of the party was a night that the friend wanted to stay home and watch a movie, I think I would feel hurt.<\/p>\n