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How your baby learns to become a social partner with peers
Filed under: Babies, Toddlers Preschoolers, Development/Milestones: Babies
A recent study in Child Development investigated how one-and two-year-old peer pairs reacted when presented with a simple cooperative task. Age differences were found in amount of coordinated activity, monitoring the peer's activity and location in relation to the goal, and attempting to achieve the goal when the peer was (or was not) available as a partner. One-year-olds' coordinated actions appeared more coincidental than cooperative-- a finding I can attest to-- whereas older children appeared to be more actively cooperating toward a shared goal. Differences in coordinated activity with peers were associated with differences in attention sharing with an adult and with language about self and other. The ability to cooperate with peers, becoming a true social partner, develops over the second and third years in concert with growing social understanding.
Studies like these are fascinating. Tracking my toddler's progress is a never-ending source of interest to me. I now have some idea of when he may begin to show cooperative behaviors, as well as why they may occur when he plays with other kids his age. Have you any experiences you'd like to share on this topic?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
8-01-2006 @ 8:29AM
Anna V. said...My daughter followed that developmental path, not becoming socially cooperative until her second year. On the other hand, my (almost) 14-month-old twins play cooperatively, and they are incredibaly socially active. They deliberately make eye contact during meals and babble to each other, never interrupting. They share toys, and it's very rare that they ignore other children. I've seen them roll balls back and forth, and they play complex games of chase and peekaboo with their sister.(I say complex because there's more to it than I can really describe.)
I believe that they're so social because they're twins, and because we treat them as individuals doing the same things at the same time. I'd like to know if other twins are as socially interactive too, or if mine are just plotting against me ; ).
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8-01-2006 @ 9:55AM
Kate said...My daughter started to play cooperatively sometime after she turned two. This development seemed to happen overnight, too. We visit with another family frequently who have a daughter exactly Morgan's age. They had always just played "parallel" to eachother and then one day several months ago they shocked us by working together to collect all of the dolls in the house, throw them in the bathtub, find a stack of towels and proceeding to give the dolls a "bath". Morgan's always been very reserved around other kids, though, and won't just play with anybody. She has 2 or 3 good friends who she will really play *with*. Around everyone else she still prefers to do her own thing most of the time.
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