The ch ildren's relationsh ips with each other
Introduction
Children' s interactions with each other are a topic of intense interest for many parents who worry about 'the company they keep,61 and by researchers and policy makers who have sought to understand how children form relationships with each other, the functions these relationships have and the ways in which patterns of friendship may be linked to different outcomes in adolescence and adulthood. I was particularly interested in hearing children's own accounts of their relationships with each other and their understandings ofthe meanings that these relationships held for them. I was also interested in their observations of children's peer relations generally and so some of my questions asked them to reflect more widely upon the nature of friendship and other types of child-child relationships. By focusing intensely on a small group of children, I wanted to be able to attend to the subtleties and differences between the children as well as to the cornrnonalities or patterns that they may have shared (Mayall, 200 1 a, p. 9).
61 The significance of this phrase in adult approaches to children's friendships can be seen also, for example, in Hartup's ( 1 996) work.
This chapter considers the ways in which the children understood and experienced their relationships with each other. It begins with a description of their friendship networks and considers the characteristics of their relationships. Here, the contribution friendship make to their emotional wellbeing is considered. This is followed by a discussion of issues of intensity, context and transferability. Attention then moves to the experience of making and losing friends. The fifth part is structured around a discussion of peer relations more generally; particular attention is paid to issues of popularity and l ikeability and the connection of these to friendship relationships. Finally, the children' s views about the differences and similarities between boys' and girls' friendships are considered.
The ch ildren 's frien dsh ip n etworks
Diagram 7 . 1 pictorially represents the children's friendship networks. This diagram is indicative only; it gives a sense of the nature of each child's friendship network, rather than a literal representation of all their friendships. Relationships are dynamic and subject to change, fixing them in diagrammatic form is therefore a somewhat artificial exercise. In
integrating the eco-maps (see Chapter Four - Semi-structured interviews) with other information given by the children, I have attempted to generate a pictorial image that achieved a 'best fit' with the nature of the friendship relations of the children during the time that I knew them.
What is immediately apparent from Diagram 7 . 1 is the large complex set of relationships for several of the girls. The girls talked of large friendship circles commonly involving between five and twelve girls, and had between one and five best friends. One of the large girls' networks included both a number of the girls in the study and some who were not participants. There were also some girls at the periphery of this large friendship group (Diagram 7.2), who sometimes played with girls in the network and sometimes played with other girls who did not link in any way to this group. The other large network included a girl from the research and six others. There were also other smaller sets of girl relationships that linked into these big networks on a more ad hoc basis.
Diagram 7. 1 : The childre n ' s friendship networks
study boy
Because of the particularity of the children's friendship patterns, n ames have been removed and codes u sed instead throughout this chapter.
In contrast to the girls, the boys seemed to have friendships that were more focused, and which were certainly smaller in number. While they may well have played with larger numbers of other boys during school time, these relationships were not important relationships and their out of school play only routinely featured their close friends. Generally speaking, both the boys and the girls in this study played together in groups of two or three when not at school. Primarily, the children's friendships flowed into and out of their school lives. In a minority of cases, however, children noted that either:
1 . they had friends they played with at school, who were usually children in the same class, and friends they played with at home who were children of parents' friends, children from their classes in previous years or children they knew from other activities and interests such as church or clubs, or
2 . they p layed with friends at school, but preferred their own company at home and thus did not often play with friends out of school time.
Four of the girls (Diagram 7.2) belonged to a large friendship network, parts of which had been in existence since their pre-school days. This network could draw in between six and twelve non-study girls. Within it were several smaller networks of best friends and close friends. Play at school and out of school time included varying combinations of these girls. When the netballlbasketball courts were available during school time, the group could number between ten and twelve girls in total. During these times, their pattern of association mirrored those of a large group of boys who also competed for space in the playing court area. When not p laying on the courts, these girls spent almost equal amounts of time sitting or walking around talking together.
While some of the friendships were longstanding, significant friendships were also formed by some of the central girls in this group with new girls who came to the school. Girl 1 , a member of the large friendship network (Diagram 7.2) elaborates upon the way in which she developed an important friendship with Jayne:
Well Jayne just came to our school last year. And I really like Jayne, she comes to my place a lot. But she is moving schools next year, and so we wont see each other that much . I will miss her heaps.
Diagram 7.2 : the networks of girls 1 ,2, 3 and 5.
Six girls did not often feature in the big network (Diagram 7.2). Two (Diagram 7.3 ) played together and joined with another non-study girl often walking to the far s ide of the sports field to engage in intense conversations. These conversations sometimes spilled over into interaction with the boys who played on the field during summer. One of these girls, Girl 1 0, also had her own extensive network that involved children who did not attend this school. This network resembled the other large network of girls in that it involved intense reciprocal relationships between all of the participating girls. The other girl, Girl 9, had five additional friends. She played with two of these individually, sometimes at school and but more often at home, and she also participated in a smaller three-way network of girl friends mostly at school.
Diagram 7.3 : The networks of girls 9 and 1 0.
Girl 7 (Diagram 7 .4) played in a three-way network at school that usually condensed down into two, two-way fri endships away from school. She also had individual school-based friendships with two of the other study girls (Girl 6 and Girl 8) during the research period. Girl 8 h ad individual friendships (Diagram 7.4) with four non-study girls and with Girl 7 . These were a l l primarily based at school. Girl 6 (Diagram 7 .4 ) p layed with a non-study girl at the beginning of the research and connected up with three other girls (Girl 5, Girl 7 and Girl I ) when they were p laced in the same class. These three friendships were based at school. Girl 4 h ad two close friends. She mostly played with Girl 5 at school and she had a
longer-standing friendship with another, non-study girl, who she usually played with at home.
Diagram 7.4: The networks of girls 4, 6, 7 and 8.
The boys had smaller friendship groups, most of which extended beyond the children participating in the study. One group of three boys (Diagram 7.5) had a very intense friendship at the beginning of the research but by the end, this threesome had shrunk back to the paired friendship from which it had grown. One of these boys also had longstanding friendships with three girls. At the time of the study these friendships with the girls did not involve joint p lay at either school or home. During the research these three boys spent virtually all their school playtimes together playing ball. In winter they often connected up with other groups of boys to play games around the congested basketbalVnetball hoops. They stuck closely together, waiting outside each other's classrooms, walking to and from classes together and in any joint syndicate62 activities they would sit together if at all
62 The syndicate involves large group activities with all the children from a two-year grouping and so allows opportunities for friends who have been separated for most class activities to sit together during these sessions.
possible. They also had play and sport relationships outside of school time. When they were separated at school they related to other children, but when there were two or more of them in a setting they gravitated together.
Diagram 7.5: The networks of boys 1 , 2 and 3 .
Five o f the other boys (Diagrams 7.6-7.9) had less intensive friendships with other children at the school. On several occasions Boy 6 (Diagram 7.6), played with two girls from his class. This school-based play involved relatively unstructured 'hanging out' sort of behaviour. He was also the boy in the study who would most often come and talk to me while I was observing in the playground, and he spoke of not enjoying lunch and interval times because they were too long and there was nothing to do. Boy 8, Boy 5 and Boy 4 had a loose collection of associates with whom they played a range of ' army man' type games involving lots of chasing around the school, hiding from each other, the teachers and so forth. This group was hard to follow because of their high levels of mobility and so my observations were mostly limited to the beginning and end of free playtimes when I would be able to catch them leaving and returning to class. These boys also participated in Pokemon and marble games from time to time. Boy 4 indicated that his important friendships were sourced from outside of the school. Boy 5 talked of two close friends with whom he played while at school, but said that he preferred his own company after school and at the weekends.
Boy 7 p layed ball games most lunch times with children younger than himself This featured in his interviews and also in the creative materials he completed (Diagram 7. 1 0). He expressed concern that the younger children spent too much time playing Pokemon and marbles and he believed that they needed to burn up energy at breaks so they could concentrate during class time. As a consequence he engaged them in ball games. He did not count these relationships as significant friendships in his eco-map and identified two other boys from his class as his friends.
Diagrams 7.6- 7.9: The networks of boys 4,5, 6, 7 and 8.
Diagram 7.6 The networks of boy 6 Diagram 7.7 The networks ofboy8
These then were the children 's relational patterns. They reflect both the individual characteristics of the children and the opportunities they had for finding other children who struck a chord with them. Friends and friendship were mentioned in the children's interviews more than any other single relationship, issue or experience and formed part of their sense o f themselves. Despite the small size and relative homogeneity of the study group there was considerable diversity in the way they talked of their friendships, the types of friendship they had, the ways they made friends, the functions friendship performed in their l ives and even the prominence friends had for them. Their relationships with each other provided an important set of school experiences that ran alongside the formal educational programme and the relationships they needed to develop with the adults employed there.
Character ist ics of the children 's friendsh ips
Friendship contributed to the children 's sense of belonging and as a result it played an important part in their sense of identity. They talked of their friendships as having differing intensities, functions and meanings. Friendships were made in a range of places but were most commonly formed at school. Building and maintaining friendships was a key activity and many of the children invested significant emotional resources in this task. For most, friends were a very important part of their emotional lives, in addition to the significance of their families.
The contri bution of friendship to children's emotional wel lbeing
Friends performed important emotional functions for the children. They talked of the support they gained from their friends and that they both sought and gave advice and assistance to each other. The companionship provided by friends was critical. It was very important that their friends liked them for who they were and this acceptance and communion was very important. The quotations below highlight these different ways m
which the children described the importance of their friends:
You c an relate to them maybe. And maybe say to them 'Can you help me with this? ' if you need to do something or anything.
They are nice. They are friendly. They stick up for you .
They are caring. They have to be kind. They have t o like you for who you are.
They are always there. If you have got a problem, you can tell them, and yeah, it is just neat to have them around.
When the children had strong friendships, these relations in some ways seemed to define them. Several talked of belonging to a friendship unit, and their membership in that group was a very important part of their identity. As Boy 1 noted:
I [know that we] will be remembered as Boy 1 and Boy 3, like we are. Everyone knows that we are best friends. It is always Boy 1 and Boy 3 .
Shared interests were an important feature o f friendship for many of the children. For some, the intensity of common interests defined and also limited the number of close friends they had and provided a focus for a lot of their time and activity. Girl 5 expressed these different facets of friendship in the following way:
Fun. Oh it is fun having someone to do stuff with on weekends and play at lunch times and to talk to on the phone, to organise things with, thinking about the things we have done. To invite each other around and practice games that we can have at school, so we can be on each other's teams.
In other situations, the children talked of maintaining friendships with others who had passionate interests that differed markedly from their o wn. In these situations it appeared that the desire for the particular friendship was more important than commonality of interest:
When I go to Hayley's place we play on the Internet and stuff like that. Hayley likes very different things, she is more into Pokemon and all that. I don't really like that, but I like playing with Hayley and so I do that too when I am there.
In addition to the emotional sustenance provided by friends, the children also drew my attention to a wider sort of communion that they gained from being children alongside other children. While particular children may not have described themselves as friends, they did note that others in their class were important to them. For instance, Girl 5, talked of a boy who she sat next to in class and whose company made boring class times more enjoyable. As she expressed the way in which this happened, she also draws our attention to the careful, covert way in which she was able to challenge the strict behaviour code established by her class teacher:
Girl 5: Cody, he is just a boy in my class who made me talk all of the time.
Jackie: Made you talk all the time?
Girl 5: Yeah, he talks a lot.
Jackie: Right, and so do you get into trouble for that?
Girl 5 : I don 't really get into trouble, but I just couldn't stop talking. And it was fun to talk to him, especially when it was really boring during school. I talked to him and watched the teacher out of the corner of my eye and when she turned around I stopped quick and sit up straight.
Observations in c lass time highlighted the ways in which children would work together as a group to provide support and assistance, even when this meant exposing themselves to the risk of being punished. The following field note, recording an emotionally charged class situation, identifies the way in which Boy 1 (who was in the same class as Girl 5 and Cody) deflected the teacher's attention from Damien and onto himself, taking a considerable risk in the process:
Field note
[watching in class #3 , Tuesday morning]
1 0 . 1 0- 1 0. 1 5 Damien is staring out the window, flicking pen up and down in hand in an absentminded way. Hasn't heard teacher ask class to put pen down and to think about question . [Putting pens down in this class i s a huge issue when the teacher asks the class for attention.] Teacher has noticed Damien, wonder what she is going to do.
Teacher screams at Damien "PUT YOUR PEN DOWN NOW". Damien comes round and realises what has happened, looks scared.
Teacher asks Damien for an answer to question. Head is down, face i s flushed, and i s now staring intently at desk. Teacher demands Damien to look at her when she is talking to him and again asks for answer to question. Class is quiet, some eyes on Damien some on the floor. Boy 1 from other side ofthe room calls out answer to question.
Teacher turns to Boy 1 . [I wonder fleetingly how she will respond to him, she has very strict rules about interruptions, putting hands up and waiting to be chosen to answer.] Teacher accepts answer to question, reminds Boy 1 about rules for contributing in class and moves on.
Subsequent playground observations and later interviews did not reveal a relationship between these boys of any significance, and certainly there was nothing recorded between