By Eugene C. Roehlkepartain
(From October 1992, RespecTeen newsletter)

  • Up: Friendships Are Important
  • Down: Friendships Can Be Difficult
  • Up: Friendships Mature
  • Down: Friends Influence Friends
  • Up: Friends Influence Friends
  • Supporting Positive Friendships
  • Selected Resources
  • What Congregations Can Do
  • What Branches Can Do

    If you want a good introduction to adolescent friendships, look at a teenager's school yearbook. Don't spend much time reading the articles describing the sports events, the dramas, the clubs, or the faculty. Don't even look at the pictures. Rather, focus on the scribbles in the margins, across the blank spaces, across faces, and anywhere else a creative teenager can find to write.

    Some people, of course, just sign their names. They're the acquaintances. They may get along fine-at a distance. Or they may just be too polite to say no when they're asked by a stranger, "Would you please sign my yearbook?"

    Other notes are longer, but not personal. Some make jokes or recall a memorable band trip or give well wishes for the future. These notes are from friends, but not close friends.

    Next are the longer notes from those friends who all get invited to the same parties, share activities, and know each other well enough to call on the phone to ask for help with homework. These notes tell stories of shared interests, concerns, values, and activities. And they always end with a variation of "We MUST stay in touch."

    Finally, there are the epistles from the inner circle. They require taking the yearbook home for the evening, and only a handful of people, at most, have written them. They may run across several pages, and they may share intimate memories. They are from an intimate circle of three or four friends who spent most of their time shopping or talking on the phone or just doing stuff together.

    Put together, the scribbles and doodles tell the stories of the ups and downs of friendship during the teen years. The loves. The loves lost. The celebrations. The tough times. The popularity. The rejection. And even the loneliness. Through it all, friends are a major part of the picture.

    It's not surprising. A lot of the changes that happen during those years involve friends. Those changes have both their good and bad sides-both their ups and their downs. Understanding the patterns can help parents and other adults support young people through these years. And it can also ease some of the fears that adults have as they see friends becoming important influences in a young person's life. Let's look at some of the roller coaster issues of teenage friendships.

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    Up: Friendships Are Important

    No one doubts that friendships are important for teenagers. A Teenage Research Unlimited survey found that, on average, teenagers spend almost nine hours each week just "hanging out" with friends. Furthermore, "getting better at making and keeping friends" is the top interest of teenagers, according to the RespecTeen-sponsored study, The Troubled Journey. Overall, 60 percent of males and 70 percent of females said they were very interested in this subject.

    Friendships are important to teenagers for a number of reasons. Researchers Ritch C. Savin-Williams and Thomas J. Berndt write that teenagers report enjoying their friendships with peers more than any other relationships. "With friends, they feel that they are fully understood and can fully be themselves. . . . These moments of enjoyment and companionship contribute to a generational sense of belonging with others who are respected and liked."

    Not only do teens say friendships are important, but friendships are also important for their development. Through friendships, teenagers learn how to relate to other people. They gain a better understanding of themselves as they choose friends and interact with friends. And friendships provide support and encouragement as young people step out on their own.

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    Down: Friendships Can Be Difficult

    At the same time, friendships can be difficult for teenagers. Psychologist David Elkind describes this as "peer shock." He notes that teenagers are thrown into a whole new world of relationships. For the first time, young people might be excluded from cliques or groups. Or they may be betrayed by people whom they considered friends. Or they may experience the rejection of young love that is lost.

    "When children socialize," Elkind writes, "their interactions are generally cooperative and centered on a common activity. Among teenagers, social intercourse is much more complex and multilayered. . . . [Teenagers] discover that their trust or their loyalty or their generosity was not reciprocated but rather used and exploited."

    Loneliness also becomes a significant problem during adolescence, particularly among females. In fact, researcher John C. Woodward of the University of Nebraska believes that teenage girls may be the loneliest people in the world. Whether or not this conclusion is accurate, it underscores how difficult adolescence can be without positive friendships.

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    Up: Friendships Mature

    One reason friendships are both important and difficult is that they're changing and maturing. Young people are getting ready for adulthood. During childhood, friendships primarily form with children living nearby-those in the neighborhood or down the block. That circle gradually expands, and young adolescents have to start choosing their friends based on trust and openness.

    Then in high school, friendships become more a matter of emotional support. Indeed, researchers find that two characteristics of friendships become most important for older teenagers: loyalty and intimacy. Neither of these is common in children's descriptions of friendships.

    During this time, relationships with parents also change. Though parents remain important parts of teenagers' lives, their influence declines, particularly in some areas. For example, teenagers continue to seek approval and guidance from parents about standards, values, and educational or career goals. However, they turn to their friends to talk about problems with dating, personal perspectives, interests, sexuality, and doubts.

    At first these friends are primarily same-sex friends. But, as we would expect, more and more opposite-sex friendships form through high school. For girls, one-to-one dating most often begins around age 14 or 15. Boys tend to start dating around age 15 or 16. These relationships carry their own joys and heartaches, but often form the foundation and the skills for lifelong partnerships.

    All of these changes are important parts of growing up. Peter Benson and colleagues at Search Institute write in The Quicksilver Years  that, during early adolescence, "networks of friendships become essential for advice on how to cope. And in these peer relationships, young adolescents help each other develop life-shaping values and perspectives. This process is necessary. Although the process neither begins nor ends during early adolescence, early adolescence is one of its pivotal periods."

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    Down: Friends Influence Friends

    Peer pressure! It's a phrase that has been blamed for almost every teenage problem. Laurence Steinberg and Ann Levine write: "Over the years, experts have blamed peer pressure for everything from delinquency and drug abuse to conformity and consumerism. Whatever the observer's particular bias, the assumption has been that, left to themselves, teenagers are up to no good."

    To be sure, teenagers can be negative influences on each other. The Troubled Journey  found that negative peer pressure is one of the factors present in young people who get involved in a variety of at-risk behaviors. When young people form friendships primarily with others who are involved in negative behaviors, there will undoubtedly be pressure to conform to the group's norms-norms that certainly aren't healthy.

    But negative peer influence doesn't inevitably lead to negative behavior. Writing in You and Your Adolescent,  Laurence Steinberg and Ann Levine suggest five ways that parents (and other adults) can help to insulate teenagers from negative peer pressure:
    1. Build self-esteem by helping young people discover their own strengths and talents.

    2. Encourage independent thinking and decision-making within the family, so the young person will have developed those skills when he or she is pressured to "go along with the crowd."

    3. Discuss situations when people have to choose between conflicting demands. Teenagers aren't the only ones who feel this kind of pressure.

    4. Talk about situations where young people might feel pressure, so they'll discover some ways to deal with it in advance.

    5. Encourage friendships with teenagers who share positive values . . . which leads to the next "up."
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    Friends: Good or Bad Influence?

    One way to think about how friends influence teenagers is to look at behaviors in which teenagers say their friends are involved. In The Troubled Journey  study, teenagers were asked whether "most or all close friends" were involved in various activities.

    Percent who say most or all close friends . . .



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    Up: Friends Influence Friends

    Wait, you say! Isn't this the same heading used as a "down"? Yes. We sometimes forget that peer influence is just as likely to be positive as negative. In The Troubled Journey,  students were more likely to report that their best friends were a good influence than a bad one. And just as negative peer pressure can contribute to poor choices, positive peer pressure can lead to healthy, productive choices.

    "The real question," write Steinberg and Levine, "is not whether  adolescents will feel peer pressure, but what kind of pressure  they will feel." Researchers find that teenagers with positive, close friendships are more likely to . . .
    Clearly, friends can be a positive, helpful influence for young people.

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    Supporting Positive Friendships

    Given that friendships can be either positive or negative during adolescence, what can parents and other adults do-without inappropriately intruding? Steinberg and Levine suggest several strategies that can make a difference.
    While teenage friendships certainly have their ups and downs, they're an essential part of growing up. And while parents and other adults may worry about the potential negative influence, it's more important to ensure that the friendships teenagers form are healthy and supportive. For, in the end, friendships help young people discover who they are and how they relate to others in the world.

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    Selected Resources

    Peter L. Benson, The Troubled Journey: A Portrait of 6th-12th Grade Youth  (Minneapolis, MN: Lutheran Brotherhood, 1990). Available from Search Institute.

    Peter L. Benson, Dorothy L. Williams, and Arthur L. Johnson, The Quicksilver Years: The Hopes and Fears of Early Adolescence  (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1987).

    Sharon Scott, Peer Pressure Reversal: An Adult Guide to Developing a Responsible Child  (Amherst, MA: Human Resource Development Press, 1985).

    Laurence Steinberg and Ann Levine, Youth and Your Adolescent: A Parent's Guide for Ages 10-20  (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1990).

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    What Congregations Can Do

    Churches can play an important role in nurturing friendships. Moreover, teenagers want their churches to do something in this regard. In its major study Effective Christian Education,  Search Institute asked teenagers what subjects they would like to learn more about from their church. The top response was "knowing how to make friends and to be a friend," with 75 percent of youth saying they were interested or very interested in this.

    Congregations can meet this need in a variety of ways:
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    What Branches Can Do

    Branches can be important partners in helping teenagers form positive friendships. Many youth activities sponsored by branches can be vehicles for friendship-building. Several of the RespecTeen coupon items include information on friendship building (see your RespecTeen Resource Catalog). Also consider these possibilities:     Return to top of page


    Copyright © 1995 by Search Institute. This article may be printed for personal use only. Other uses require prior permission from Search Institute, 1-800-888-7828. All rights reserved.