Peer relationships and friendships
Having friends during adolescence is associated with many aspects of psychological well-being:
- Close friendships provide an opportunity to explore one's self and develop a deep understanding of the other person. Open, sincere relationships with friends promote sensitivity to each other's needs and desires, strengths and weaknesses. Teenagers get to know themselves and their friends better. This process contributes to the development and formation of identity.
- Teenagers' relationships with peers serve as a kind of model for their future social relationships with the world. Teenagers, who at the age of 12–14 were focused primarily on study, family and the world of adults, refusing to communicate with peers, at an older age often experience difficulties in relationships with people, not only personal, but also work-related. Long, emotionally rich communication prepares teenagers for love relationships. Helps in the future to establish romantic relationships and resolve problems that arise in them.
- Friendships help cope with the stresses of everyday life. Friends and acquaintances give a teenager strength and self-confidence, help in solving internal and interpersonal problems. As a result, anxiety and feelings of loneliness are reduced, and self-esteem and confidence increase.
It is no secret that the influence of friendship on the development of adolescents depends on the characteristics of the friends themselves.
This is how aggressive friends encourage each other to engage in deviant (deviating from the norm) behavior and antisocial acts. Whereas healthy competition among friends, for example in a math club or sports, contributes to the development of useful qualities. As children enter adolescence, they begin to increasingly feel the need to belong to a particular group. A grouping reaction manifests itself: the desire of adolescents to be in a peer group for the sake of communication. The group creates a special experience - the “sense of We”, which plays a significant role in the teenager’s self-determination and in determining his status in the eyes of his peers. While friendships influence the development of trust, sensitivity, and intimacy, peer groups encourage children to practice cooperation, leadership, obedience, and community commitment. The main goals of a teenager: to be accepted into a group that is attractive to him, to be liked by his peers, to be recognized in his company. Hence the reaction of conformity - the desire to not stand out from one’s peers, to be “like everyone else”: wear the same clothes, have the same hobbies, listen to the same music, watch the same TV series, speak in the slang accepted in the group, etc. With age Adolescents become more selective in their friendships, and by the end of adolescence, the number of close friends decreases. Relationships with close friends become intimate and trusting, i.e. deeper and more stable than before.
Parents have more influence on teenagers' life values and plans regarding their education. Peers are more influential on current and specific issues: choice of clothing, musical preferences, interests, friends. According to research, teenagers who do not belong to groups tend to have low self-esteem, suffer from loneliness, study poorly, and are more likely to have mental disorders and cases of deviant behavior.
Sometimes a teenager may be attracted to the values and views of one person rather than the group. This person may be a close friend, a favorite teacher, an older sibling, a movie or sports star, or someone else whose behavior is admired and inspiring. Here the reaction of imitation manifests itself - imitation of a certain person or image. The influence of a significant person or character is most powerful during this period, when the teenager is actively looking for a role model.
Who writes testimonials at school?
The characteristics of a student in a general education institution is a kind of mini-dossier that contains information about the child that is of a personal nature, including biographical data, both positive and negative character traits, emotional and psychological state, intellectual and creative abilities, presence or absence bad habits or deviant behavior, description of relationships in the team and within the family. The characteristics are written either by the class teacher, or by the head teacher or director of a general education institution, with the assistance of a school psychologist, who provides the results of tests or diagnostics.
Its content directly depends on where the reference from the school may be required: for submission to the court, the police, the juvenile affairs department, the place of further study, or to the guardianship and trusteeship authorities. It is written on the official letterhead of the school with the seal of the institution and the signature of the compiler.
Relationships between boys and girls
Separately, it is worth highlighting the relationship between boys and girls. Teenagers become interested, at first they observe each other, and practically do not communicate with each other. Often, a boy’s first attempts to attract attention to himself are manifested in the form of teasing a girl (pulling her pigtail, hiding her textbooks). The girls' reactions are quite traditional and predictable: squeals, complaints, etc. However, girls often understand the motives for such actions correctly and are not seriously offended.
In older teenagers, communication between boys and girls becomes more open: mixed-sex company arises, desires to please the other sex appear, attachments and sympathies arise, which can be very emotional and occupy an important place in the life of a teenager. The formation of mixed-gender companies helps boys and girls get to know each other better, try and learn patterns of relationships with each other.
Some boys and girls form couples in which the relationship takes on the character of affection and love. In the early stages, these relationships may be secretive or not reciprocal: adolescents do not dare to tell their feelings to the person they are in love with, preferring to experience the fulfillment of hope in dreams and fantasies. Often a teenager loves more the fictitious image of the “other”, his dream, than the real person. Currently, the average age of entering into relationships with the opposite sex is decreasing. This trend is explained by the earlier onset of puberty, changes in social traditions, the impact of behavior patterns promoted by the media and social networks, as well as the desire of adolescents themselves to become adults as quickly as possible.
Why do you need a reference from school?
The requirement to provide such a document has become common in recent years for various structures and institutions. This is due to the fact that it saves organizations from wasting time and allows them to quickly find out as much personal information about the child as possible, which during a conversation with the student himself and his environment will not be so objective, accurate and truthful. Plus, the characteristic makes it possible to draw a psychological portrait of a person in absentia, even before personal acquaintance.
Positive reference for a primary school student
Characteristics for a student of grade 3-B "MOU School No. 35" in Arkhangelsk
Kolkhoznikov Daniil Vasilievich, living at the address: st. Moskovskaya, 28, apt. 112.
Daniil Kolkhoznikov has been studying at school No. 35 since the first grade. He is brought up in a full-fledged family with his younger brother. Parents take an active interest in their son’s school life, regularly attend parent-teacher meetings and monitor the educational process. The family's financial situation is stable, the child has never needed anything.
The student has high intellectual abilities and a thirst for new knowledge in various fields. The desire and ability for the exact sciences and mathematics are especially noticeable. Possesses the skills of independent and team work in the classroom, thinks logically, analyzes, draws conclusions, and clearly expresses his thoughts or position.
Daniil’s behavior is exemplary: he does not violate discipline in the classroom and order at school, and does not skip classes.
Positive character traits include: hard work, perseverance, kindness, honesty, willingness to help classmates, responsibility and sociability. There are no bad habits. Negative character traits include excessive curiosity, stubbornness and slightly inflated self-esteem.
The student is distinguished by a high level of education, tact, and respect for elders. He enjoys authority among his peers. He is interested in boxing and has received gold and silver awards at the city level.
He studies at an art school, where he shows consistently high results.
He studies excellently, regularly completes his homework, and treats the teacher’s requests conscientiously.
Characteristics of a truant student
Sometimes the school has to issue such a document for a truant student. The characteristics of a student who does not attend school have a similar structure, but differ in content, which is quite justified.
Characteristics for a student of grade 8-B of Municipal Educational Institution “School No. 131” in Moscow
Sidorenko Lyudmila Glebovna, living at the address: Moscow, st. Geroev Stalingrada, 14, apt. 5.
Student of school No. 131 Lyudmila Glebovna Sidorenko has been studying at this educational institution since September 1, 2003. He is brought up in a full-fledged family, but does not consider his parents to be authorities, and therefore relationships in the family are complex. Parents try to pay maximum attention to their daughter, but all attempts to interfere in her personal and school life are met with hostility.
The student's intellectual abilities are at a sufficient level, she shows interest in chemistry and biology, geography and history. At the same time, he shows unsatisfactory results in mathematics, Russian language and literature. Lyudmila has mental and thinking abilities, but due to laziness, she shows them reluctantly. He often expresses his personal opinion in class and substantiates it, but in a rather harsh form. Does not tolerate compromises.
He skips classes often and for no reason, citing a lack of interest in studying.
Positive character traits include: sociability, openness, honesty, increased understanding of justice. Negative character traits include stubbornness, irresponsibility, laziness, self-confidence bordering on narcissism.
Shows no interest in creativity. Shows good results in sports and is actively involved in martial arts.
Relationships in the team are tense. He knows how to find a compromise with classmates only if it is beneficial, otherwise he prefers to remain silent, without entering into open conflicts.
There are no bad habits.
He studies well only in those subjects in which he shows interest. The level of knowledge in Russian language and literature, algebra and geometry is below average due to regular absenteeism. Has a tendency to cheat, but has the potential to show better results.
Features of nonverbal communication
The peculiarities of communication between people without words are the use of gestures, postures, facial expressions, etc. instead of the language system. Such communication is considered the most capacious and reliable.
When communicating, a person listens not only to verbal information, but also looks into the eyes of the interlocutor, perceives his timbre of voice, rate of speech, intonation, facial expressions and gestures. Words can convey logical information, and non-verbal communication tools can complement this information and fill it with emotions.
Features of nonverbal communication are communication without words, which quite often occurs unconsciously. Non-verbal communicative interaction can complement and strengthen verbal communication or, conversely, contradict and weaken it.
Nonverbal communication is considered an older and more fundamental form of communication. The ancestors of Homo sapiens interacted with each other through gestures and facial expressions, breathing rate, body position, gaze, etc.
Nonverbal language can be universal (for example, babies laugh the same way) and vary depending on culture and nationality. Traditionally, nonverbal communication occurs spontaneously.
Words can perfectly convey the logical component of information, but verbal tools convey the emotional content of speech much better.
The peculiarities of human communication using non-verbal means are that such communication is quite difficult to control and manage, even by professional actors. Therefore, nonverbal communication is much more reliable, informative and reliable than verbal communication.
A person can learn to control some of the characteristic features of nonverbal communication. However, he will never be able to learn to control absolutely all characteristics. After all, an individual can simultaneously hold no more than 7 factors in his head. Therefore, the main feature of nonverbal communicative interaction is considered to be that it is spontaneous and unintentional. Nature gave tools for non-verbal interaction to humans. All gestures, facial expressions, body positions, etc. were developed in the process of evolution and natural selection over many millennia in order to come to this day as they are.
Mastering the language of nonverbal communication allows you to obtain a more effective and economical way of transmitting information.
Many gestures may not be recorded by the human consciousness, but will still fully convey the mood, emotions and thoughts of the interlocutor.
