Spinoff: best friends

[Haiku]

At what age do kids start having best friends? My dd is 9, and at this point in time I think it's safe to say that her brother, age 8, is her best friend. She has not expressed much interest in having other friends. She LIKES her friends, and she is always happy to see them, but she has not yet reached a stage where she asks to get together with them outside of scheduled activities, and when the "tweens" in the homeschool group go walking around talking, she only does this for a few minutes and then gets bored and goes off to play either by herself or with another group of kids who is actually playing, not walking/talking. We haven't talked about it but I do see that some of the girls around her age are starting to act "older" than dd. I'm not concerned about dd at all. All the kids seems to like her and she's never had any social issues that I know off. I'm just wondering at what age girls tend to start developing "best friend"ships. I had a best friend at the first school I went to, when I was K-3, and I met the woman who has been my best friend the rest of my life when I was 8 or 9. Is it just a personality thing as to when having a best friend becomes important?

 

Tara

[2squared]

I don't know what typical is, but I do know that last year (3rd grade) all the girls my dd's age started pairing off into best friends. My dd is the only kid her age not in our little local school, so I don't know what being best friends really entails. My dd loves getting together with her friends, and she would love to have play dates every day. :glare:

 

The irony of her life is that her 7yo brother is truly her best friend, despite her believing that another 9yo girl is her best friend. I have never seen sibs their ages so emotionally close.