Reflecting on Middle Childhood Friendships: Cliques, Activities and Selman’s Perspective Taking (Discussion Post)

Discussion: Reflecting on middle childhood friendships

In Chapter 7, we explore how children’s friendships evolve as they grow. For children ages 8 to 11, trust, assistance, mutual liking and shared activities are key aspects of their relationships. In adolescence, friendships deepen with the addition of intimacy, as friends confide in each other. Selman’s Stages of Perspective Taking explain how children’s ability to see situations from others’ viewpoints develops in stages, helping them understand friends’ thoughts, feelings and motivations, resolve conflicts and build stronger friendships.

• Were you part of a clique during middle childhood? If so, how did being in that group shape your friendships?
• What kinds of activities did you enjoy doing with your friends at that age?
• Thinking about Selman’s stages of perspective taking, how do you think your ability to see things from your friends’ points of view influenced your friendships during middle childhood?
• Why is it important to understand how friendships develop in childhood? How might this knowledge help in forming and maintaining relationships throughout life?

Original example for study purposes (about 450 words). This is a personal reflection, so replace the memories with your own and cite your Chapter 7 reading.

My clique. In fourth and fifth grade, I was part of a tight group of four girls who called ourselves “[group name].” We sat together at lunch, played the same games at recess and had a shared notebook where we passed notes and drew comics. Being in the group gave me a strong sense of belonging and loyalty, which matches the textbook’s description of middle childhood friendships as built on trust, mutual liking and shared activities [textbook, p. __]. However, the clique also had a downside. We sometimes left other classmates out, and when one member moved to a new friend group in sixth grade, the rest of us felt hurt and even resentful. Looking back, the group shaped my friendships by teaching me loyalty, but also showed me how exclusion can hurt people inside and outside a group.

Activities. We spent most of our time riding bikes around the neighborhood, building forts, trading [cards or stickers], practicing dance routines to our favorite songs and having sleepovers. Most of our friendship was based on doing things together rather than sharing deep feelings, which fits the idea that intimacy becomes more central in adolescence.

Perspective taking. At that age, I think I was moving from Selman’s self-reflective stage to the third-party stage (Selman, 1980). I could understand that my friends had different feelings and could imagine how they saw me, which helped me apologize after arguments. For example, when I was chosen as team captain and did not pick my friend first, I realized she felt embarrassed and rejected, and I made it up to her. However, I was not yet very good at stepping back and seeing a conflict from a neutral point of view. When two friends argued, I usually took the side of the one I was closer to instead of understanding both perspectives. As my perspective taking grew in middle school, I became better at mediating disagreements and understanding why people acted the way they did, and my friendships became more stable.

Why this matters. Understanding how friendships develop helps parents, teachers and counselors support children. For example, knowing that young children’s friendships depend on shared activities suggests giving them structured chances to play together, while knowing that perspective taking develops gradually helps adults coach children through conflicts instead of expecting them to see every point of view. For me personally, this knowledge helps in adult relationships: I recognize that good friendships still need trust, help and shared experiences, and I try to listen for the other person’s perspective before reacting. It also makes me more aware of how cliques can exclude others, so I try to make new people feel welcome at work and in my community.

References

Selman, R. L. (1980). The growth of interpersonal understanding: Developmental and clinical analyses. Academic Press.

[Your course textbook, Chapter 7, in APA format.]

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