How do you learn to exclude people?
How do you learn to exclude people?
We begin to
learn to form friendships almost from birth: the first time we take a look, a
smile back or recognize a face or a voice. By the time we are big enough to
understand the word "friend", we already know that a bond with
another person is worth being sued - that makes us feel good. But learning howto form friendships is also part of a process of learning in parallel: we win
our first true friend, not separate friends. Children spend the first decade of
their lives determining what it takes to sustain a meaningful friendship - and
they do so partly by discovering what it means for people to leave.
It is a
process that begins even before we can speak. During the first years of life,
children participate in what psychologists call the solitaire game: Plunk two
small humans next to each other, and they may enjoy having company, but they
will not actually do not interact. Somewhere between the ages of 3 and 5, it
becomes a parallel game, where they will do the same activities next to each
other; They still do not play together, exactly, but they're close. From there,
they go to the associative game, which implies a little more interaction, like
the toys of conversation or exchange. And at the age of kindergarten, they are
cooperative games, coordinating their creativity functions or working together
toward a common goal.
As your level
of interaction increases, you want to keep things at a level you can handle -
which sometimes means deflecting potential playmates. "Two preschoolers
play together often re-grow a third child to pass, not because they are trying
to be mean, but because they work alongside their cognitive limitations in coordinating
their play," says psychologist -more Eileen Kennedy, co-author of the
upcoming book Growing Friendships: A Guide for Kids to Make and Keep Friends.
When you are already formally imposed to be part of a functional couple, make
it a trio can make to information overload. As children grow and their brains
can handle more people at a time, their game situations can become more
elaborate and, by extension, to include more people.
For a while
at least. As children learn to play together, they also work to acquire
critical knowledge: others are actually other people with their own opinions
and their own thoughts. It is not necessary for children to learn that they
love some people more than others; Even a 12-month-old can show a preference
for some of his compatriots. However, the ability to think of your relationship
as a relationship - in a way that allows you to classify some people into the
more permanent category of "friends," and stays in "no
friend" - is something that takes years to develop.
Psychologist
Robert Selman has broken into five distinct phases. In the first, which begins
between the ages of 3 and 6 years old, children are more or less tornadoes of
self-absorbing fat. They are able to love others and play with others, but they
tend to see other children as extensions of themselves. "They're very
unpleasant when a friend has a different opinion." That said, Moore said.
Here, friends are really like momentary playmates ... there's a kind of love
you're up to with quality. "These are preschoolers who set aside new play.
Foreclosure is common, but it's also temporary, durable And without social
consequences.
The second
phase, which usually begins around the mother or shortly afterwards, is what
Moore described as the "What's in my pregnancy" phase: children are
more aware of the independence of their friends but the channeling of this
awareness In a sort of dynamic -tat eye by. "We hear a kind of
negotiation, like:" I'll be your friend if you do this, "she said.
More than anything, a friend" is a person who is going to do great things
for them. "Then, there is a test phase, where children receive a more
sophisticated understanding of social norms and become hyperactive about
adjustment; after that, a phase of intense and emotional connections, they
become easily jealous of their other relationships. The last phase, which some
children reach at age 12, is a mature friendship: "place a high value on
emotional closeness - they are not so possessive," Moore said, and
"who can accept and appreciate the differences between Friend and
themselves. "
At the end of
the primary school year, when most children are in one of these last three
steps, almost everyone has enough knowledge about the concept of friendship to
membership in a group requesting friends. For one thing, they now have the
cognitive ability to manage this group-based interaction, unlike their younger
age. More importantly, however, children in the vanguard of teenagers gravitate
towards groups as a kind of security blanket - they begin to deviate from their
parents and forge their own identity, and it is often a solitary process.
Having a band actually a little less. "When you do not know who you
are," says Moore, "there is no security in the part of the
pack."
There’s also
more than just safety. When you’re trying to figure yourself out, your gang can
be a kind of guidepost, explains Sarah Gaither, a social-psychology professor
at Duke University: “We all want to maintain this positive view of who we are,
and the groups we belong to only reinforce that positive view.”
And if you
build your identity around a group, it is important to define what this group
is not. "This is what really ends up pushing the kids to be more exclusive
to the other kids," says Gaither. "If they are really trying to
reaffirm," I am in this group and this group is important to me. "In
primary school, physical aggression is replaced by a tattling and then by
gossip - both ways draw boundaries, and keep one still wandering in place. The
action of extinguishing people, therefore, does not necessarily have much To do
with outsiders; More often, it is an act of self-preservation.
This means
that if a child from outside wants to get through, Moore said, they must do so
in a way that clearly indicates that they do not pose a threat to the group's
character. This is the result of a strategy that calls "look, and then
merge": Learn the rules of the group you are trying to reach - if small
children playing a game of tag, or high school students complain about a
teacher - you can Join only once you are sure to play with them. "If
everyone is enthusiastic about something, then the child should express a
similar enthusiasm," he said. "It is not to be like everyone You
actually have the group's climate" In other words, one can be satisfied
with how the line is drawn ..: on the one hand, we are bound by all that unites
us and also everyone else.
