Before, when I’d come to pick up Klara from school, she’d run to me, happily squealing, “Mommy, Mommy!”
Now that she’s almost five, I come to pick her up and she immediately runs towards the school window to wave and giggle and chat with the kids she left exactly three seconds ago.
These are normal stages of development. Friends gradually become more important than parents. In teenage years, the need to separate from the parents and form one’s own identity culminates in an animosity towards parents and an overvaluing of the peer group. People who don’t go through this process on time tend to have trouble forming their own families.
So you can imagine the damage done to kids when they are barred from hanging out with friends.
Clarissa's Blog 
“These are normal stages of development. Friends gradually become more important than parents.”
Respectfully, I think that it sounds nicer and is closer to truth if you say that friends gradually become more interesting than parents, rather than saying that they become more important 🙂
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“friends gradually become more interesting than parents”
For a 5 year old (at least one from a stable household) there’s not much difference…
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In objective terms, the people who feed and house you are of course a lot more important. But a child sees that as a given. Unless it’s a chaotic, abusive family, it’s expected that there’s food on the table and mommy and daddy are always there to take care of you and love you.
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“For a 5 year old (at least one from a stable household) there’s not much difference…”
Some parents feel a bit sad about it. Use of the word interesting is more palatable and imo more accurate anyway.
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