North American Ed - Coping and competence

3.2 Getting along with others

Powerful emotions and aggressive impulses are a normal part of early child development. Learning to regulate emotions and behaviours is essential to making friends and getting along with others.

In the next video, Dr. Jean Clinton, clinical professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuroscience at McMaster University, explains that children need a “predictable other” in order to develop their abilities to get along with other people. Children benefit when adults label and acknowledge children’s feelings and model how to handle challenges.

The next three videos highlight children learning to take turns and get along with one another. In the first, watch as two-year-old Greta tries to manage her frustration while learning how to share with her brother. In the second clip, watch as school-aged children in Pakistan happily take turns playing on swings. In the third video, watch as children play with cars and ramps and receive guidance from an adult. In all videos, the children are learning to share and take turns with others without resorting to the use of aggression.

In the next video, Sir Kevan Collins, former chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, discusses many ways that children benefit from collaborating and co-constructing when they are together, especially when they are together in diverse groups with opportunities to negotiate without adult intervention.

Making friends

Understanding other people’s feelings is also essential to getting along with others. Aggression and conflict are linked to an inability to understand why others behave as they do. We can help children learn by asking them to talk about other people’s feelings, thoughts, likes and dislikes in the stories they listen to or in everyday conversations. The ability to understand perspectives of others also develops with age. Once children are about six and up, they become much more interested in playing games with rules. This reflects an increased ability to understand other persons’ points of view.

Listen as Dr. Joan Durrant, professor emerita from the University of Manitoba, offers insight into children’s intense emotions and explains how we can use these times to help children understand their feelings.

In the next clip, Durrant suggests strategies that help children learn to regulate intense emotions like anger and manage conflict with others.

As we observe and interact with children we need to consider how to best respond and sometimes, whether we even need to respond at all. In the next video, you will see several children in an outdoor treehouse at Kittiwake Daycare in Vancouver. For the most part, they do not realize that anyone can see or hear them. As you watch the scene unfold, consider if you would intervene at any point and what you would do.

In the next video, Melanie Walters, a supervisor at Kittiwake, explains the importance of observing and knowing the children in one’s care and how she responded when she thought a conflict was developing in the treehouse.

Watch the next video as two young children navigate their way through some minor conflicts. Notice that the adults appear to hang back and see how the children can manage without an adult stepping in. Pay close attention to the subtle ways the children show their growing awareness of each other.

Entering play with one other child, or a group of children can be natural and easy for some, or very difficult and somewhat stressful for others. We can help guide children who are having a hard time entering play – at the park, in early childhood centres or at gatherings of family or friends.

The next reading from Abilio explains that relationships with peers can be especially difficult for children if they have challenges related to communication, social interaction, motor development, aggression and/or hyperactivity. It also offers suggestions to prevent problems and to encourage positive peer interactions.

In the next video, Dr. David Philpott, professor in the Faculty of Education at Memorial University in Newfoundland, describes that when he was a physical education teacher he observed that young children naturally include children with disabilities. As you watch this video, consider whether this resonates with your experience.

Dr. Lillian Katz is professor emerita of Early Childhood Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. In the next video she discusses how we can engage with shy children as an example of understanding the causes of particular behaviours that may prevent them from engaging with others.

Abilio has recommendations for educators and for parents to help children make and keep friends.

Responding to bullying is a challenging task for caregivers. Listen as Clinton explains bullying in young children, and ways that the “adult-culture” influences the context of bullying in child care.