[otabdeveloper4]

I'm pretty sure that the idea that 'sustaining friendships' is an absolute need, and that not having friends is some sort of disease that needs to be 'fixed', is an American cultural quirk.

It's okay to not have friends.

[emteycz]

No, it is widely believed around the world, and it's coming from research around child development, mostly done in the east (European nordic and former communist states).

[otabdeveloper4]

As far as I know, America is the only place in the world where they'll try to "fix" a kid that doesn't have friends.

(Of course there is also the overarching American tendency to try and "fix" any person that doesn't fit some predetermined robotic mold.)

[TomMarius]

I am a Czech kid who got psychological consulting at school because I had no friends; and that was 15 years ago in a backwards city, it's a norm today.

AFAIK it's also very common in (western, on top of the formerly communist eastern part) Germany, Austria and Netherlands in addition to the countries I said before.

I wouldn't call it fixing though, they're treating it as a symptom, and there are no molds, just the understanding that socialization is extremely important for child's development, which is also why we have mandatory (publicly funded) kindergarten for at least one year before school begins, and most kids are going from 3 years old for 3 or 4 years - we even have people that determine whether the child is socially ready to move to school and if not, the kid stays a year more in kindergarten (again, my personal experience, and at least half the kids I know had it the same).

Note the German etymology of the word kindergarten; it's been studied and practicioned for a long time here.