Teenagers who have difficulty making and maintaining healthy friendships with peers at age 13 continue to struggle with relationships long after high school, according to a new University of Virginia longitudinal study.
Early secondary school is well-known as the time social pecking orders are established, bullying and gossip proliferates, and kids start seriously thinking about jumping off that bridge if all their friends do. The study suggests that a student's ability to balance peer pressure with social desirability in early adolescence can predict how well they will handle social relationships in adulthood.
