Research shows that positive peer relationships benefit students in a myriad of ways, at school and in life.

Both quantity and quality of relationships matter for kids.

• Studies have found that young children with higher numbers of friends are less likely to be lonely, and more likely to like and be engaged at school.
• In middle childhood, peer acceptance, friendship, and friendship quality all matter in terms of reducing a child’s chance of loneliness.
• Positive peer relationships help make children more resilient, even when they face difficulties at home.

Having one good friend can be enough.

• Having just one close friend can be enough to protect kids from the negative effects of being treated badly by other peers.
• Similarly, research shows that adolescents with at least one reciprocal friendship have higher self-esteem than those without one; on the other hand, having greater numbers of friendships doesn’t seem to further increase self-esteem.

Especially for adolescents, positive relationships with peers make a big difference in other areas of life.

• Peer acceptance relates positively to GPA in middle school; in fact, research shows that positive peer relationships can explain up to 40% of adolescents’ academic achievement.
• Positive peer support also predicts adolescents’ health and well-being (across cultures) and their emotional and behavioral engagement with school, an effect that increases over time.
• Likewise, teens whose close friends are prosocial are much more likely to set prosocial goals and behave prosocially themselves in the future.