what does it mean for young people?

Friendships in adolescence are based on values ​​such as protection, mutual help and trust. Realize the role of these relationships for young people.

It is important that fathers and mothers realize that teenage friendships are one of the main means of building the identity of the most young people🇧🇷 It is based on them that they establish their beliefs and perspectives about the world and the people around them.

Friendships in adolescence are essential for the emotional and mental balance of young people, as it is often in friends that they find the right people to talk to, vent, cry, share secrets and find help and strength.

In addition, they are playmates and fun, also very important aspects in the life of any teenager.

Teenage friendships: what we should know about them

Friendships start practically from nursery school, when children begin to share toys and games and treat and care for each other, nurturing feelings of affinity and affection for each other.

This is a first experience that contributes to the learning of norms and social rules, serving as an example. Friendships manage to function as a support network whenever something fails in another domain of life, such as the personal, professional or other domain.

What contribution do parents make to these friendships?

Parents and educators should encourage their children’s friendships, for example, inviting their classmates to the house, allowing them to go to the movies or providing other moments of meeting and socializing.

A friendship only survives if it is nurtured and, in this case, the physical distance does not matter. Therefore, parents should encourage their children to regularly contact their friends through the most varied means available.

Friendship must have strong and sustainable foundations for it to work as an external support to the family. That’s what “best friend” means. Deep down, he is someone who provides support, affection, companionship, fun and emotional stability. Thus, the young person feels better about himself, reinforcing his self-esteem and self-confidence.

Main advantages of friendships in adolescence

Thus, friendships in adolescence bring to young people several things that are beneficial for their personal growth and affirmation.

For a friendship to be considered good, it must be based on three essential values, namely: integrity, care and joy. Furthermore, in the case of young people, they offer still:

• sense of belonging;
• emotional support;
• understanding your place in the world;
• experiences with the opposite gender.

However, teenage friendships can still be typified in the following manner, as we elaborate below.

• Useful: they only aim to obtain from the other what interests us at that moment and we cannot achieve in any other way.
• Pleasant: there are common interests, activities or tastes that connect people and provide positive moments and feelings.
• Out of admiration: there is great respect for the other who, in some way, serves as an example for us and who is someone whose deeds and values ​​we want to achieve.

In this delicate phase of a young person’s life and development, the great challenge for parents is to accept friendships during adolescence as something healthy and essential in their children’s lives, even if sometimes it seems that they like or prefer to be with their peers than with others. with your own family, for example.

Of course, as with adulthood, not all teenage friendships are beneficial for young people. Therefore, parents must be attentive, in the sense of perceiving whether the three fundamental pillars for a good friendship are at the base of these relationships, that is: integrity, care and joy.