First graders keep only about half of their friendships from fall to spring. Fourth-graders maintain about three-quarters of their friendships across the school year.

Kids argue as much or more with friends than nonfriends! This is partly because friends spend more time together than nonfriends and partly because what a friend says or does matters more to us than what someone we’re not close to says or does. Luckily, friends are also more likely to resolve conflicts fairly, in a way that allows the relationship to continue.

A clique is a group of friends. Cliques usually involve three to nine kids hanging out in groups of all boys or all girls. Cliques don’t have to be bad or mean. By age 11, most kids say they are members of a clique.

In 1997, the United Nations declared Winnie-the-Pooh, the teddy bear character created by author A. A. Milne, to be the international Ambassador of Friendship.

By age 7, almost 2/3 of children (65%) say they have had an imaginary friend at some point in their lives. Elementary school kids mostly say their invisible friends are invisible. More than one out of every four children (27%) have an imaginary friend that their parents don’t know about. Sometimes imaginary friends can be annoying!