During the elementary school years children depend on each other for companionship, advice, and self-validation. Friends provide a context for self-understanding and learning of how to relate to others. Friends are a source of help and self-revelation. Children learn to negotiate, share, comprise, and defend each other and themselves through interactions with friends. For example, my daughter as a teen was at a dance when she saw a boy ask a girl to dance. The girl looked him up and down, made a dislike face and walked away. As she was walking away my daughter said loud enough for her to hear, "That was rude." She defended the guy and called the girl on her behavior. A certain amount of aggression and reconciliation is expected in friend relationships as children work out conflicts with each other and learn how to comprise.
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