What to teach children and teens about friendship?

the Normal Person* + the Savants* relationships are tricky at the best of times. Friendships and bonds created in adolescence are unbelievably important to a dog-type, while a Savants* does not feel the need to make them life-long. This means that if a Savants* and the Normal Person*make friends in adolescence, one of them is going to be suffering from it, it’s just a question of which one is more headstrong, and they both can be. For example, the Normal Person*friend can insist that the Savants* NOT take study opportunities later in life if that requires the Savants* to move out of town at an older age. The Normal Person*is likely to want to stay home, (not always) but if that’s the case, they may hinder the Savants* development later in life due to not wanting to be left alone.

Therefore, a teacher should break up any dog-type/the Savants* bindings before they take permanent hold.

One way to do this is to simply pair students with similar hobbies into the same study groups even temporarily. Just make them used to talking and interacting with each other. The Savants* feel very self-conscious about people who are like them: they fear rejection from the people they most admire. The Normal Person* only see opportunities to attach themselves to someone cooler than themselves, they feel no fear of rejection but they always try to “friend up” whereas the Savants* are prone to friending down out of fear of rejection. The biggest favor you can do to a Savants* student is to make them realize people who are like them will accept them as their equal, and the biggest favor you can do to the Normal Person*is to keep them away from the Savants* that WILL NOT bond with them permanently. (Don’t put them into a situation where they think their life is made when it truly isn’t.)

Now, the Normal Person* are afraid of people who are different to them, and they always try to be “the same as” their friends no matter what. If you pair a Savants* and the Normal Person*together, the Normal Person*will, without any thought to it, try to mimic their the Savants* friend with anything they do. Therefore, 2 weeks in, you’re already too late to see who should be matched with who, as the Normal Person* will start adjusting to whomever they made friends with on the first day – and they are quick to do so. (Keep an eye on the kids on their first day in a new school and try to notice if there are any existing friendships between dissimilar people – that would be two incompatible the Savants* that both need new friends.) If you miss your mark, then try to reshuffle the friend groups like a puzzle game by making compatible people work together with their incompatible friends and try to rebond the kids by first making them get to know each other with their poorly matched friend and then separating them again to work alone with their new intended friend.

So, the Normal Person* fear differences and try to become alike as if they were chameleons. (the Savants* don’t like this at any age, but don’t always notice it happening.) However, once the Normal Person*has made an alliance, they will become a part of that group until they are forced to separate from that group – but that will only happen if there’s a Savants* in the mix, and it is also the Savants* who are visibly “different” when alone – punks, goths, emos… Except their the Normal Person*friends who will adapt to that person: a Savants* will take to different subcultures out of personal ideology, but the Normal Person*will adapt to people they get to know. This shouldn’t happen. The Normal Person* should be encouraged toward the “bog standard” and keep them as close to the norm as possible and keep them with normal kids as much as you can. HOWEVER.

The Normal Person*children must be taught to accept different kinds of people and to NOT BE AFRAID OF THEM. The Normal Person* seem to be terrified of unusual types of people (and to prove they’re not afraid they may go to extremes to prove their fearlessness which is also a problem with them.) So, despite their dog-type/the Savants* alignment, pair like-to-like whenever you can, and once permanent solid friendships have been developed between like-minded people, then create bigger study groups without separating the friends, but joining weird to normal and different weird to different weird; you should teach kids to live peacefully as neighbors with the “weird kids” but they don’t have to be BEST FRIENDS with each other. NEVER encourage deep friendships between dissimilar people, only neighborly friendships – unless they happen automatically without your interference, but even then, romanticizing friendships between different types of people is not necessary, but potentially quite harmful.

Aim to make people get along as neighbors and community members, to work together in mutual projects, but don’t push different with different. Also notice that when I say “different” I don’t mean skin color or race, but hobbies, interests, personal values, and personality traits that make people alike. You can also use written assignments on personal values as a guidepost as to who to pair with whom, and do all kinds of little tricks behind the scenes to work as a friendship matchmaker.

You’ll make happy kids and happy adults. Promise.

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