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16.7: Peers and Play

  • Page ID
    225526
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    Learning Objectives
    1. Identify the role of peer relationships in a child's social and emotional development.

    Relationships within the family (parent-child and siblings) are not the only significant relationships in a child’s life. Peer relationships are also important. Social interaction with another child who is similar in age, skills, and knowledge provokes the development of many social skills that are valuable for the rest of life (Bukowski, Buhrmester, & Underwood, 2011). In peer relationships, children learn how to initiate and maintain social interactions with other children. They learn skills for managing conflict, such as turn-taking, compromise, and bargaining. Play also involves the mutual, sometimes complex, coordination of goals, actions, and understanding. For example, as preschoolers engage in pretend play, they create narratives together, choose roles, and collaborate to act out their stories. Through these experiences, children develop friendships that provide additional sources of security and support, in addition to those provided by their parents.

    A group of children engaging in pretend play with a cash register and pretend goods
    Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Navigating dramatic play provides great opportunities to continue to develop social skills with same-age peers. Image by Seattle City Council is in the public domain.

    However, peer relationships can be both challenging and supportive (Rubin, Coplan, Chen, Bowker, & McDonald, 2011). Being accepted by other children is an important source of affirmation and self-esteem. Still, peer rejection can foreshadow later behavior problems (especially when children are rejected due to aggressive behavior).

    Peer relationships require developing very different social and emotional skills from those that emerge in parent-child relationships. They also illustrate the numerous ways in which peer relationships influence the development of personality and self-concept. 29

    References, Contributors and Attributions

    29. Children’s Development by Ana R. Leon is licensed under CC BY 4.0

    Bukowski, W. M., Buhrmester, D., & Underwood, M. K. (2011). Peer relationships as a developmental context. In M. K. Underwood & L. H. Rosen (Eds.), Social development: Relationships in infancy, childhood, and adolescence (pp. 153–179). The Guilford Press.

    Rubin, K. H., Coplan, R. J., Chen, X., Bowker, J. C., & McDonald, K. L. (2011). Peer relationships in childhood. In M. K. Underwood & L. H. Rosen (Eds.), Social development: Relationships in infancy, childhood, and adolescence (pp. 203–234). The Guilford Press.


    This page titled 16.7: Peers and Play is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Heather Carter.

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