ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the research in the field of children’s friendships. The paradigms that have evolved over the last twenty years for understanding the subject have approached it from different directions and have not always been compatible. However sufficient evidence is now accumulating from studies in child abuse, peer rejection and attachment theory to give some pointers to future directions in both practice and research. The chapter stresses the need to look at children’s withdrawal from peer relationships as a complex phenomenon with different pathways and different consequences. The impact of the child’s early attachment history and the development of internal working models for relationships are a clear basis for the development of friendships. In particular, the internal development of a picture of a responsive and available parent generalisable to an expectation of a responsive and available network of other relationships.
