
The outsize influence of middle-school friends - rainhacker
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/01/friendship-crucial-adolescent-brain/605638/
======
mirimir
My memories of childhood friends are utterly bittersweet. When I was ~9, I
fell in with a group that played with WWII munitions that we found in the
woods. A few years later, two of my younger friends were seriously injured. I
was never overtly blamed, but I felt guilty.

And then, about a decade later, now in the US, I fell in with hippies, and got
into dealing LSD. But then a couple friends got busted. So I dealt drugs to
pay for their defense.

My point, I guess, is that I never really learned how to actually maintain
friendships. I am capable of making friends, and doing what friends do for
friends. But it always feels like I'm playing a role. Maybe that's why I've
become an anonymous coward.

~~~
saber6
> My memories of childhood friends are utterly bittersweet. When I was ~9, I
> fell in with a group that played with WWII munitions that we found in the
> woods. A few years later, two of my younger friends were seriously injured.
> I was never overtly blamed, but I felt guilty.

Care to share more (as much as you feel comfortable)? That's a very
unconventional childhood experience! Thanks!

~~~
mirimir
Basically, quality control was iffy, so an appreciable percentage of munitions
didn't work. Or were just lost and forgotten, in the heat of battle. Weapons
too.

So it was quite the wonderland for kids who liked to blow stuff up, and play
at war. But you had to know what stuff was relatively safe, and what was
likely to go off, if you looked at it wrong. For example, you avoided anything
that contained picric acid.

But hey, I lived through it. And it was great fun. Overall, it was arguably
safer than making acetone peroxide, which I gather does go off, if you look at
it wrong.

~~~
Kinrany
> But hey, I lived through it.

But would you tell us this story if you didn't?

~~~
quickthrowman
Let’s get serious here, who would finish writing the story once he’s 6 feet
underground and can’t get a cell signal?

------
nck4222
Tangentially related to this article, but moving/uprooting children can have
fairly large negative consequences that affect them the rest of their lives.

Here's one article [1] that found:

"Elevated risks were observed for all examined outcomes, with excess risk seen
among those exposed to multiple versus single relocations in a year. Risks
grew incrementally with increasing age of exposure to mobility"

Examined outcomes consisted of "attempted suicide, violent criminality,
psychiatric illness, substance misuse, and natural and unnatural deaths."

There are many more studies if you search for them that show a range of
affects including worse academic performance and one I found that included a
higher rate of hospitalization in kids who moved (although the cause was
unclear).

It's a traumatic event.

[1] -
[https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(16)30118-0/pdf](https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797\(16\)30118-0/pdf)

[2] - [http://theconversation.com/moving-home-can-affect-your-
child...](http://theconversation.com/moving-home-can-affect-your-childrens-
health-and-education-62738)

~~~
at_a_remove
I would fall into the category of kids who did not do well with this. I was
moved a double-digit number of times when I was in single digits of age.
Eventually, my parents thought to take me to a psychologist to solve the
puzzling issue of why I wasn't making friends. The notes I requested from the
psychologist decades later included a line from me that went something to the
effect of that I didn't get to enjoy having friends, I just got to miss them.

I absolutely missed some social developmental windows, somewhat like the
kittens who, never exposed to horizontal lines during a critical point in the
Blakemore and Cooper experiment, were unable to perceive them later on.
Nothing I have been able to do in terms of reading, groups, exercises, and the
like has been able to grant me the easy camaraderie that comes readily to
others. Instead I am typically watchful and quiet, on the periphery of any
group. Carnegie, Toastmasters, and all of the glad-handing can provide at best
a kind of thin simulation that never takes root for me. I have faked it and
been unable to make it, leaving me with a somewhat guilty fear that any charm
I may have would be greasily like that of any garden variety psychopath.

Perhaps the most "positive" thing to come out of it would be near-schizoid
levels of self-reliance and an ability to acquire local accents to better fit
in.

Some kids get over it, some ... do not.

~~~
nck4222
>something to the effect of that I didn't get to enjoy having friends, I just
got to miss them.

>I am typically watchful and quiet, on the periphery of any group.

>I have faked it and been unable to make it

I know other people who moved several times as kids, and these are very common
sentiments among them (and many other people as well, who didn't move).

I don't have much else to say, other than you're not alone and I hope you find
peace with this.

~~~
heartbeats
Why would you find peace with being stunted and missing out on major parts of
life? To be blunt, it doesn't sound like something to be enthusiastic about.

~~~
kossae
Because the alternative is living your life in misery due to your past,
constantly dwelling on something you can't change. People can overcome things
to the best of their abilities, and it's normally good advice to at least try.

~~~
bsanr2
I think it would be interesting to note how many of you find this an
objectionable mindset because of its self-destructiveness, compared to how
many of you find it objectionable because you simply cannot stand to be
reminded of the wretchedness this world is capable of.

It's the difference between volunteering at a soup kitchen, and recommending
the installation of those anti-homeless spikes at your building entrance.

------
riazrizvi
So by Middle School, your social persona has ripened and you spend more effort
on socializing than non-social play. And because of the bias we give first
impressions, we form the strongest opinion of how we fit in socially during
Middle School.

Makes sense from personal experience. I went into Middle School with some
asocial traits, which ultimately lead to very painful ‘friend’ betrayals...
and the next 40 years I spent minimizing the importance of friends.

~~~
77pt77
> and the next 40 years I spent minimizing the importance of friends.

Do you regret that now?

~~~
riazrizvi
Well I don't do regret, but now that this article has helped me realize I
probably have a bias against investing in friendships, I can take action to
compensate going forward. Put reminders in my phone to call people I know on a
recurring basis etc.

------
downerending
"But there is also a dark side to the social world of middle school, as anyone
who has been through it will remember. Sixth graders who do not have friends
are at risk of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. About 12 percent of
the 6,000 sixth graders in Juvonen’s study were not named as a friend by
anyone else. They had no one to sit with at lunch and no one to stick up for
them when bullied."

Very relate-able, unfortunately. In many ways, it set the tone for my life.

~~~
reaperducer
This is going to be perhaps the least popular comment I've ever made on HN,
but I will relate to you the advice my parents gave me when I was a socially
awkward, introverted, bullied middle-schooler:

Dad: Suck it up. Mom: Get over it.

Being bullied in school doesn't mean you have to be bullied for life. As a
kid, things can be stacked against you. You're surrounded by people who are
older, stronger, more powerful, and more capable than you. But you don't have
to be bullied as an adult if you don't allow it to happen. Adulthood is a much
more even playing field than childhood. You have resources (HR department,
change jobs, change neighborhoods, police, social services, lawyers, etc...)

I know there are people who as adults are bullied. I know some of them. But in
every case I've seen they've allowed a history of bullying to make them
believe that they are powerless to change their circumstances. They're not.
They choose to remain in that position because it's familiar, and change and
confrontation are scary. But sometimes you've got to suck it up, act like an
adult, and do adult things. And that sometimes means standing up for yourself.

~~~
greedo
Your experiences don't translate well to anyone I've know who was bullied. I
was bullied in junior high. I was told to stand up to the bullies, to defend
myself. I was 5'6", 125lbs. The bullies (three of them) were all 50lbs heavier
than me, and were on the football team. I stood up to them once. Kicked one in
the balls. The other two, beat my ass and held me down til the third
recovered; he beat on me for a good ten minutes. This went on for several
years until they got bored with me and discovered girls.

Sucking it up and getting over it? Yeah, I sucked it up. But you don't get
over something like that. At my current job, my boss is a type A manager who
encourages "competition." I have a family to finish raising, so yes, I'm
powerless to change my circumstances. I suck it up everyday for the paycheck,
knowing that my kids are fed, my mortgage paid, and my retirement is being
funded.

But to blithely state that people should suck it up and get over it minimizes
the cost of that type of treatment. I have few friends, I'm incredibly
cynical, and I'm probably a bad coworker since I have a sense of snark that I
frequently voice.

~~~
kortilla
> I have a family to finish raising, so yes, I'm powerless to change my
> circumstances.

Where do you live that changing teams or changing employers can’t be done
until you raise a family? No offense, but in every case I’ve heard someone use
that explanation, it’s just been an excuse to avoid the effort of change.

~~~
airstrike
Agreed. Unpopular opinion: few things are as detrimental to one's success as
seeking comfort. Success is built on sweat, blood and tears.

~~~
tomrod
As someone who is satisfied with the success I've found in life -- you forgot
a whole truckload of luck being involved.

One of the few things I think Scott Adams has right when is he says we can
influence our luck. But at the end we play odds, sometimes despite our sweat,
blood, tears, and sometimes in spite of their lack.

~~~
airstrike
I don't disagree. I thought about including luck, but thought that would take
away from the things that we can actually control, and I wanted to contrast
"seeking comfort" with "seeking sweat, blood and tears".

------
beat
My middle school years were pretty miserable due to family drama stuff. I'm
only in touch with two friends from that era (via FB). I contrast this to my
kids, who went to a really great charter school from grades 7-12. Their core
social groups are still made of their junior high and high school friends - my
daughter (age 25) was just an attendant for one of those friends' weddings,
and another one of their jr high friends was also an attendant. For someone in
their mid-20s to have a whole social network of friends they've known half
their life amazes me.

~~~
iovrthoughtthis
Same boat for me. Solidarity.

------
ultrasounder
My son who is on the autism spectrum always had difficulties making friends at
school. Because, of sustained bullying in 6th grade we have kept him home and
started home schooling. He loves the flexibility to learn anything he wants,
and the lack of social anxiety. BUT, off late he has started interacting more
with our neighborhood kids more and he is really starting to enjoy their
company.They do a lot of outdoors things and they actually make things. SO, it
does seem like kids(esp boys) tend to make more meaningful relationships right
around middle school some of which tend to last a long time at least until
they go separate ways after high-school. Just my own experience with my son.

------
compiler-guy
"I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12 - Jesus,
did you?" \--Stephen King in his short-story "The Body" (which became _Stand
by Me_ the movie.)

Totally relate to that.

~~~
plughs
Relating to the article, that quote always makes me sad. I moved at 12, I
didn't have friends. I feel like I missed something I can never get back.

~~~
greedo
Growing up I had problems fitting in and also experienced this sense of loss;
not having the same shared experiences as people around me. I wonder now how
other kids who "didn't fit in" for whatever reason (orientation, intelligence,
economic status) feel? Or is everyone alienated to some extent, and just hides
it?

~~~
kedean
I feel like I fit that grouping too. I didn't fit in most places as a kid (I
never really figured out why, which still scares me), but I had a pretty good
group of friends in elementary school who bonded over that fact. Unfortunately
our middle school split each grade into two "teams", and I ended up on the
wrong one. That meant I had none of the same classes, my locker was in a
different hallway, and I had a different lunch period. Essentially, it was
like I had moved. Thanks to that, middle school is the most forgettable time
of my life. I sort of made a few more connections throughout those years, but
nothing that lasted at all, and any time i've talked with those people since
has been pretty awkward because we never really knew each other.

Luckily that changed with high school, where more freedom was offered and so I
found new friendships easier to make. I was eventually able to make at few
friends, one of whom has been lifelong, by random happenstance of lunch
tables. Interestingly, my wife had roughly the same experience of losing all
her friends at the start of middle school and not really rebuilding until high
school.

------
jedberg
> “Middle school is about lunch.”

I never really thought about it, but 30 years out, pretty much the only
memories I have from middle school are lunch time. I remember a few other
things, but at least 90% of what I remember from middle school happened at
lunch.

------
ineedasername
Telling your child "you'll make new friends" seems to be about the least
helpful and least sensitive thing you could say. As though friendships were
some fungible substance of social interaction, none of any more value or
special quality than another.

Though I do wonder if the trauma of severed relationships is helped these days
by social media, cell phones, video chat, etc. When I was growing up, even
long distance phone calls were too much money for regular use to stay in
touch. Moving away, or having a friend move away, was for all practical
purposes similar to losing a friend to death. There was a very good chance
you'd never see them again.

------
sjg007
Happened to me. My best friend went to the private school and I had to go to
public school. It definitely impacted my grades. I had asked my parents to
send me to the private school too but it wasn't in the cards. And by best
friend I mean someone who was a peer with similar work ethic and intelligence
so we learnt from each other. That was traumatic. I had made that friend after
moving to a different state in the 5th grade. I remember leaving my friends as
being somewhat traumatic but not as traumatic as the different high school
thing. I sort of owe my career to him and his family since they were software
entrepreneurs in the 90s.

------
smoyer
Lunch in middle school was absolutely the worst part of my life ... reading
this article, I'm amazed that I didn't grow up to be a serial-killer. My
family also relocated for my eighth-grade year and, returning in ninth grade
was especially horrible. I like like the tag-line of the Mortified podcast -
"We are freaks, we are fragile ... and we all survived". Now I'm wondering how
many of my misfit acquaintances didn't actually survive.

------
kstenerud
“Friendships take place in this larger context where there’s a status
hierarchy,” she told me. “Kids know very well which kinds of kids are friends
with one another and where they stand in that overall status hierarchy.”

Huh. I never knew such a thing existed.

~~~
downerending
That's a very insighful comment. One of my ex's (who was otherwise a rather
terrible person) absolutely poured herself into making sure that her daughters
were well-liked and did well in this game. I think it's one of the best things
she's done.

~~~
jvm___
How do you practically put this into effect? What steps can you take to help
the kids without being a helicopter or intrusive patient.

~~~
thundergolfer
At least in Australia, being great at sport is a pretty reliable way to being
popular as a teenager. You have to get kids into sport much earlier than
middle school though to get them great.

------
cletus
So I only moved twice during the school years. This is a lot less than some
but I really think it did me no favors at all.

The first was at the end of the third grade. Company town shutting down. There
wasn’t much choice here.

I moved to a bigger but still small town and even though I moved between
school years I still found pre-existing and entrenched friendships. Like many
commenting here in never has the greatest social skills to begin with and I
don’t think I ever really fit in.

Moved again after grade 7 (At the time years 8 was the first year of high
school). It was a horrible place and I deeply regret efforts by my parents to
send me to boarding school.

But I fell in with people who themselves were outcasts and I learned the
lesson that even outcasts can climb a rung or two by throwing other outcasts
under the bus.

After a year of that I actually visited my old town and friends but there just
wasn’t much attachment there and I realized just hope much had changed in a
year of separation such that I never visited them again. I don’t hear them Ill
will, to be clear. We had just diverged.

I don’t miss anything snotty high school. I don’t miss anyone from high
school. There were some nice people but none I was close friends with. My own
limitations played a part in that but it is what it is.

There was one more move in high school but it didn’t result in a change in
high school. It did however lead to a loss of independence and power.
Previously I rode my bike to school. After the move I had no choice but to
take the school bus (more opportunities to be bullied) and the way this worked
was I arrived at school 40 minutes before it started and had to stay 40
minutes after it finished.

Compounding to that the friends I did have just didn’t live near the new house
and I lost the ability to visit them without being driven.

I think I hated that more than any of the moves.

A lot of people who go to college (as I did) get their lifelong circles of
friends from college instead. I don’t think I ever learned how to do this so
kind of missed out on this too.

I don’t know how much of this I can blame on moves. Luck on who else is in
your peer group must play a huge factor. All I know is it didn’t help, I
didn’t enjoy it and there are literally zero people I have any contact with
from the school years.

------
jordanbeiber
I wonder if theres a link to the result of studies on children that are forced
to move around:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-kids-
moving/moving...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-kids-
moving/moving-during-childhood-linked-to-poor-mental-health-
idUSKCN0SV2JT20151106)

On the radio I heard the result of a Danish study mirroring this result.

------
dropoutcoder
My middle school years consisted of being bullied: verbally and physically
abused.

I’ve been grinding my teeth since the first physical violence incident at age
11 that involved numerous full blast blows to my head. My response meanwhile
was regretful bullying of a few other kids in response. The cap to this was
additional physical violence against me before entering high school, in the
presence of law enforcement who stood aside and allowed the punishment to be
inflicted, likely due to the perception of me having been a scumbag to a
popular kid in sixth grade, and/or an old school non-interventionist attitude.

By the end of middle school, the lifetime of suicidal ideation was cemented.
The end result was extreme social immaturity entering high school and a
downward spiral of an unwanted life drifting towards destitution and
homelessness at middle age. My neighborhood peers were religious tribalists
who looked down upon me and essentially formed my perceptions of the world as
a religious outsider threatened by promises of eternal torture for non
compliance. I dream of suicide around the clock and remain afraid of death and
have zero desire for anything but preparing for death.

Needless to say, I don’t find this species to be very pleasant or deserving of
my time or participation and certainly not of any offspring. This, of course,
is sugar coating the reality: I think this species is total rubbish, and
regardless of how many nice people exist, there’s been a never ending string
of low quality people that I’ve encountered over the past 30 years, myself
included. I remain fearful of facing the unknown of death despite decades
dreaming of dying. Zero desire for help of any kind; I inherited a fortune and
gave it away. I pray for forgiveness and mercy in the afterlife and remain
eternally fearful, having been indoctrinated by peers with promises of eternal
torture as a consequence for failure to engage in a particular belief system
(coupled with the tribal violence by participants of said religion).

Fuck this species. Sorry: the solution is for me to die and wash away my
broken brain. Some people simply don’t want to be helped. The natural laws of
evolution are met with my lack of procreation and my suicide washes away my
broken experience so others can have a better chance. Accordingly I’ve given
away my inheritance and gone homeless in preparation. So thankful it’s almost
over and infinitely scared nonetheless. At some point soon I’ll simply ask God
or the universe to forgive me for failing to be “strong enough” to “overcome”
my little not particularly uncommon tragedy. Sorry.

~~~
loteck
You're a survivor of repeated trauma. I wish society could have rescued you
and shown you a different life. I'm sorry that didn't happen.

~~~
dropoutcoder
The wish breaks the natural order. Some people bounce back and prosper, rise
above it. Their genetics are superior. Mine were not. It’s natural that I die
now. It’s correct that I didn’t procreate.

And, of course help was offered yet I reject it. I gave up in middle school
when it was happening.

