also, children can be really kind and thoughtful to each other, that's just not the current topic

Throughout my years working with young children, I have noticed some universals that span across ethnicity, culture, and gender. One universal is the way they try to assert autonomy in their social relationships (read: how they manipulate each other). Here are two conventions frequently used:

You're not my best friend.
This seems to be the most upsetting phrase a four-year-old can hear. When someone wants to express how mad he or she is at a friend's actions, this is a standard go-to. I don't remember using this when I was little, but I do remember the positive form of it being attempted on me. "I'll be your best friend" was a phrase sometimes used to try to convince me to do something I wasn't planning on doing. It never worked, because I already had two best friends and wasn't interested in letting anyone else in on the action.

You can't come to my house.
The positive of this statement is also frequently used to include and exclude certain people. A child will often say, "Raise your hand if you want to come to my house," then name which of the people with raised hands are allowed to come over. This one drives me crazy, absolutely crazy. It's not like it's even a real invite - it's simply a way to get other children's hopes up, and then make them feel uncool. Or...if I was looking at it from a more developmental perspective, it's a way for children to create a situation in which they have some control, since they are frequently told what to do by adults. Still - drives me crazy. And I didn't do this when I was young.

So, if the two universals that I have noticed in the past five years were absent from my own childhood, how did my friends and I display our tendencies toward manipulation? I think the classic was:

Fine, I'm leaving!
Once that person started to go, there would be two remaining (you know, cause there were three best friends). One of the remaining two would say to the other, "Don't follow her. That's what she wants you to do." Yes, I think we could've written the book on how to manipulate your friends.