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If you have positive friendships when you're young, you're more likely to become a happy adult...research in the US suggests close stable friendships increases our self-esteem and they help us form better long term relationships. And new research from The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London says if you are lonely at 18 you're more likely to have mental health problems.

So how do we ensure that children develop good friendships? Is it a skill you're born with or one that parents can nurture? And how involved should adults be in a child's social life? How and when do young children make relationships, what happens when it goes wrong and can we make it go right? Plus, stepping beyond the boundary of childhood - Is good friendship more than an individual's happiness, can it also shape a healthier society?

Mariella Frostrup is joined in the studio by consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist Lydia Hartland-Rowe from the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, Liz Robinson co-head of Surrey Square Primary School in London, Anna-May Mangan a self-confessed pushy mum of 4 who wrote a book to help her daughters get into medical school. And Dr Sally Marlow, mental health researcher from The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London.

Producer: Philly Beaumont.