Children learn social skills, such as taking turns, reading other people’s feelings, settling quarrels and including others, through frequent play with peers and through adults who model and coach those skills. In a small settlement with few children of any one age, mixed-age play and shared tasks supply what a large peer group would, and adults need to watch for the child who is left out.
How children develop the ability to get on with others, and how a small community supports it. Studies named are cited from recall.
Social Play Develops In Many Forms, Not One Sequence
Parten’s observations of preschoolers (1932, recalled) described children playing alone, watching, playing alongside others, and eventually playing cooperatively. Later work shows that these are not strict stages replaced one by another: older children still play alone and alongside others as well as together. Expect a mix. Understanding that other people have different thoughts and beliefs develops through the preschool years, with wide variation, and is helped by conversation about feelings and reasons. Adults support this by naming emotions (“you were angry because he took it”) and asking about others’ viewpoints (“how do you think she felt?”).
A Small Settlement Changes The Peer Group
The age bands in this guide assume children have peers close in age. A settlement may have two or three children in total. Mixed-age groups are normal in small-scale societies, where children of different ages play and work together, and older children care for younger ones (anthropological work such as Gray’s on hunter-gatherer play, 2009, recalled). Mixed ages give younger children models and older children practice in patience and leadership; they do not give a same-age friend. Where possible, arrange regular times for children of near age to meet, including with a neighbouring group.
Method: How Adults Help
Step 1: Provide lots of unhurried time with other children, with adults nearby but not leading.
Step 2: Model what you want. Children copy how adults share, apologise and handle anger.
Step 3: Coach in the moment. Calmly name what happened, ask what each child wanted, and help them find a fair solution. This is a child-sized version of the steps in Conflict Resolution and Mediation.
Step 4: Use shared tasks. Working together toward a goal builds cooperation; Sherif’s 1954 “Robbers Cave” study of boys’ camp groups found that shared goals reduced hostility between rival groups, and a later review of intergroup contact (Pettigrew and Tropp, 2006) found that contact generally reduces prejudice (both recalled). Use this when integrating a newly arrived child: see Welcoming New Members and Integration of New Members.
Step 5: Watch for exclusion and bullying. Persistent teasing, exclusion and hurting of one child need an adult response, with the aim of stopping it and repairing the relationship, not of public humiliation.
Fairness And Right And Wrong
Children’s sense of fairness shows early and becomes more sophisticated with age and experience. Let them take part in making small rules for their own games, and explain the reasons for community rules in terms they can follow (Explaining the Why).
Common Mistakes
- Always intervening, which takes away practice in solving disputes.
- Never intervening, which leaves a child who is hurt without help.
- Treating the quiet child as fine. Children who are shy may be rejected or lonely.
- Making the oldest child permanent referee.
- Assuming siblings are friends.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Adolescence (12-18)
- Combine with: Structured vs Unstructured Play