Cyberspace makes peer pressure stronger than ever

Peer bonding

What, you wonder, are these young people doing talking on the phone for hours at a stretch. Don't they have homework to finish? Assignments to complete? Art classes to attend? Practice music or art? And if all else is done, help about the house? Why are they wasting their precious time - not only on the telephone, but on the Internet, at malls, hanging out at the sports clubs, huddling around their playstations, video games or whatever else is the rage these days.

A psychologist might say you are watching peer bonding in process, in plainspeak they are forming friendships. In fact, they are checking out their perceptions of the world with others their age in order to gain a realistic view of themselves and others. Which is just another way to spell growing up.

Where does peer bonding take place? Mainly at school, which for many of our children is the one place to meet people their age. It also happens at the playgrounds, which admittedly, we have so few of; at the malls, of which we have so many; and also at the art centres where some of them spend enjoyable hours discovering their potential.

"How they form friendships varies with the age they are at," says M. Sinclair, head teacher at the Horizon School. "The little ones begin with one best friend and then that friend has his own, so they form a threesome and that is how their group expands. It's interesting to see this kind of bonding taking place spontaneously at break time. It is a shared interest that brings them together and holds them there. Which is just how Caryn Fisher and Lotta DeSmet, both second-graders, became best friends.

They both enjoy skipping and the climbing frame at break time. And Lotta has this other best friend called Casey who's something of a champ at skipping. Casey teaches them some great tricks with skipping and they in turn teach her some of theirs.

"Similarly, shared interests is what brought Cyrus Edgar, Christopher and Scott Middleton together even though they are not all from the same class. The informal Pokemon card trade clubs helped cement friendships until they were banned by the school.

Now it is the stamp-collecting club. That, and the fact that they all love to kick a ball around, binds them in a warm circle that we know as friendship. Since they do not know where their friends stay, the telephone and Internet lines keep the friendship alive through the after-school hours and term breaks. While you and I might run out of topics they never seem to - they discuss homework, review video rentals, quote to each other their favourite characters from books and cartoon serials and exchange their world views."

It helps, of course, if the parents too get friendly so the children can enjoy unstructured time together. Says Mary Turlik, deputy head teacher at the Horizon school. "We urge parents to participate in the school functions whether it is the Beach Barbecue, a much-looked-forward-to event by all children, where they spend the day out on the beach in various activities organised for them as well as their parents, or the Halloween party or the National Day.

It's important that parents support their children's friendships. Because friends are a huge part of our children's lives and this is one way of getting to know our children well. This becomes especially important in their teen years, but you cannot get access to this world if you have not been a part of it from the beginning. Spend time at their orchestra practice, attend their school games, make their friends feel welcome at home, and it will be much easier to stay in touch with them in the difficult teen years.

Friends can often be the cause of heartbreak. "As teachers of very young students, we all seem to spend an inordinate amount of time sorting out their problems. But, really, they seem to do it quite well on their own too. You could see two of them close to a fist-fight but in the very next period they forget it happened and are back to their old selves," observes Sinclair.

Our first lessons in forgiveness are learnt in childhood with friends. As Caryn very simply says: "One time Lotta and I had a fight, I fell and she stamped on me. So I was angry. But she said she was sorry because she had not seen me and I said it was okay." As we grow up, we are more likely to react first and less likely to be forgiving.

Particularly for violating the confidentiality clause, where your best friend just let out your secret. Perhaps it was about an incomplete assignment or more earthshaking like a personal failing. Entire weekends and even vacations have been wrecked by this disloyalty.

Teachers could step in to turn the tide. A sixth-grader is eager to share her viewpoint: "Because we are a small class, our teachers catch on very quickly that we are out of sorts. Talking with them helps us tremendously, but when they give us tips on tackling a problem it is even better. Like the time when I would get angry with my friends and they would ignore me completely. That made me even more mad. But my teacher told me to share my feelings with them and it is working. I get less upset with them now."

Friendships may often form between older and younger children when they are encouraged to spend some of their play time in helping out the younger ones with their work. "It's something to see the look of glee on a toddler's face when an older friend takes her piggy back or swings her in the air," says Sinclair.

In our peripatetic lives, friends could change over term break, but lessons learnt from friendships – of sharing, caring and forgiveness – stay with us forever.