Tell Me Who Your Friends Are And I Will Tell You, Who You Are
Background and keywords:
In his book providing key strategies for teaching boys, Biddulph (2003) stated that girls in today’s Western world possess more self-confidence than boys. Self-confidence is frequently linked to the position a child occupies within the group, who supports him and his inner circle. Friends and groups/cliques are especially important to children during puberty years. It is common knowledge that at that age, children start gradually detaching themselves from their parents and home life, as they become more independent. Often parents dictate to their children, which friends are desirable and which are not. As Helga Gürtler so eloquently puts it, parents want their children to have friends that greet in a friendly manner, wipe their feet before coming inside and know how to speak “in a civilized manner”. Often parents are not very good judges of which children make good friends and which others are merely, only figuratively-speaking good at “buttering them up“. Children themselves have completely different criteria, when it comes to meeting...