6 Reasons Why Childhood Friends Are So Valuable In Your Adult Life

What is it about childhood friendships that leaves such a deep mark on our lives?

Here are six reasons to why the friends you make in your childhood have such a strong impact in your life.

1. Our childhood friends are part of our roots

Childhood friends were witnesses of our first steps, in every way. Together with our neighbors and classmates, we learned to add and subtract, to write in cursive, to play games and sports, and so forth. Maybe we learned to play musical instruments together. Above all, we had fun together, and shared countless experiences during that stage of our lives.

2. Childhood friends know some core things about us

No Matter how many years may pass – we all still have the same temperament we did as children! The nervous ones are still nervous, sentimental ones are still sentimental, and the same holds true for the artists, the class clowns, and the teacher’s pets.

3. With your childhood friends, you can be who you are

They’ve known us for a long time, and have seen our defects and our virtues. They’ve seen us in my different situations, and know how we’ll respond in just about any situation. We often feel at home with these friends, because we don’t need to hide anything—and probably couldn’t if we tried.

4. A mysterious bond keeps us deeply united.

The bonds of our shared experiences create a deep empathy. The friendship that started in the classroom, on the playground, in the street or in the yard, now plays out in the realm of adult life.

5. They help us strengthen our self-esteem

Whether things have gone well or badly for us, our childhood friends remind us that, for them, we are—and always will be—valuable because of who we are. This helps us to feel secure and to keep fighting in difficult times. Our childhood friends are a solid foundation where we can find support.

6. They help us be realistic

Meeting up with childhood friends can help us to be more realistic, because we’ll see that, with the passing of time, they’ve had very similar experiences to ours. While some people have more success or more difficulty than others, we all have obligations and commitments, ups and downs, and joys and sorrows. When we see ourselves reflected in our childhood friends, it can help us be more grounded.

None of this means that we can’t forget deep and lasting friendships later on in life. However, there will always be something special about those friendships we made in our most formative years.