High-quality friendships in kindergarten may mean that boys will have fewer behavior problems and better social skills in first and third grades.
Girls in the first and third grade had good social skills, regardless of the quality of their kindergarten friendships. Boys, on the other hand, clearly benefited from the good start that early high-quality friendships provide.
Friendship quality was important for both boys and girls in kindergarten. Kindergarten kids with high-quality friendships tended to have fewer behavior problems and better social skills than those whose friendships were of low or moderate quality. In contrast, kids who had low-quality kindergarten friendships had more behavior problems during kindergarten.
Jennifer Engle, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Illinois published in the Journal Infant and Child Development.
(Source: futurity.org)
