Why friends matter so much at this stage
The group becomes the place where they test who they are outside the home. What's expected and what deserves attention.
2 min read
In adolescence, the friend group starts to fill a role that the family used to fill. It's not that family stops mattering: it's that your teen needs to test themselves among peers, away from the eyes of adults.
What gets built among friends
- Identity: who I am outside my family.
- How to deal with other people: negotiating, putting themselves in someone else's shoes, getting through a conflict.
- Belonging: feeling there is a place in the world that is theirs.
- The experience of having a fight and being able to recover from it.
What's expected
- At times, friends matter more than family.
- There is frequent and very intense social drama.
- Friends change over time.
- There are periods with more social life and periods with less.
What deserves attention
- Isolation that goes on for weeks.
- Signs that they're being excluded or bullied.
- A sudden change of friend group, with no explanation.
- Their relationships are online only and they avoid any in-person contact.
Needing time alone is not the same as isolation that hurts. The difference is in how they experience it.
A question to take with you
What is it like for you when you're no longer the first person they turn to?