Growing up is tough, especially as a teenager is bewildering—and thoroughly formative. Research done on the socialisation of teenagers show that teenage friendships could be the foundational building block of well being in adult life and that not only the types of friendships teenagers have but when they make these friends matters.
“What a teen thinks about how accepted they are within the social network in the early adolescence is especially important in predicting the later adult well-being,” the first author of the article of Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, Emily Shah of the University of Arkansas, said. ‘Conversely, in late adolescence, it is the quality of the more intimate close friendships that is a better predictor: adult well-being.’
The findings presented here indicate that our relationships with other individuals determine how a person feels about him/herself, functions in the community, and psychosocial health, which in turn influence physical health.
Relationships can also assist in coping with the stressful changes teenagers go through: exams, getting a job or being thrown out of home.
“Friendships during teenage years offer youth one of the first experiences of consensual intimacy,” Dr. David Szwedo of James Madison University added, being the study’s corresponding author.
Since friends can come and go, the friendship is an environment that the teen has to learn to foster in order to nurture the friendship or lose the friendship altogether. These skills are probably useful for establishing further friendships and other longer term bonds, including romantic ones.”
The authors of the study involved 184 students in an American middle school.
Lastly, the researchers were able to track down such teenagers turned 28-30 years old to ask them about aspects of physical and mental health, job satisfaction, partner insecurity, and experience in aggression.
These kinds of studies suggest things that can be expected on the average, and things may not be like this for every child or a teenager, as Szwedo noted.
It further goes a long way in stressing the ‘need to know’ by talking to them, talking to their teachers, talking to the people their children are talking to on social media.
It is beneficial when the parents not only question the friends that their teens have, but also how well they are accepted in the society.
Reference: Frontiers. Different types of teenage friendships critical to well-being as we age, scientists find
