Your Kids' 'Friends' May Actually Hate Them

Kids often think they're pals with someone who dislikes them: Study

By Steve Vivian, Newser User

Posted Jan 21, 2011 12:13 PM CST Posted Jan 21, 2011 12:13 PM CST
Promoted on Newser Jan 21, 2011 1:41 PM CST

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Your Kids' 'Friends' May Actually Hate Them... — Friendship among kids can be illusory, a new study finds. (AP)

New research on elementary school kids suggests that as many as in 1 in 8 relationships a child has may be "unbalanced." In other words, one child feels the other is a friend, while the other child actually dislikes him or her. Prior research has focused on friendship pairs and pairs who dislike one another, and researchers were surprised by the frequency and consistency of such unbalanced relationships, reports ScienceNews. One theory is that disliked children misinterpret the kindness of more socially skilled children as friendship.
(More friendship stories.)

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