The Power of Swear Words.

You don't need to understand the size of the world to understand relating to other kids. Short of cognitive disabilities and differences like Asperger's and other Autism spectrum disorders it comes perfectly naturally.

Social dynamics form as early as preschool and by the age of eight concepts such as best friends and bullies have already established places for themselves in children's minds.

Have you ever seen the way children can taunt and torment one another? They can raise it to an art form even with their crude vocabulary and limited terms because the implications are there. Even if those implications are less sophisticated than who's the father of who and who's sleeping with who, the implications of who's not wanted, who's an outcast, who's a misfit, who's different are present and every bit as cutting.

Your own inability to recognize such a rudimentary thing is either willfully turning a blind eye to it, or pure obliviousness.

After the age of eight they've already learned the concepts and skills, it's just a matter of continually refining it to meet their current social situation, throughout junior high and into adulthood where the circumstances continue to evolve and change. The basic patterns never differ, it's just new ways of applying them.