Friendships are voluntary, and occur when children spend time together in shared activities, routines and rituals at home, school and in their community. While it is important for children to choose their friends, being together in the same place does not necessarily result in friendships. Moreover, friendship and peer acceptance are not one and the same:

Friendship is a positive, reciprocal relationship between two or more children where each child considers the other(s) a friend.

Peer Acceptance is an index of a child’s social status among peers i.e., accepted, rejected, ignored. (Asher, Parker, & Walker, 1996)

It is more beneficial for parents and early childhood personnel to help a child form, and nurture, specific friendships than to ensure he or she is popular with all children in a group or program. A child can have at least one close friend even when not widely accepted by his or her peers.

Parents and other early childhood partners can actively influence a young child’s social development and foster early friendships:

• Encouraging children to share activities, materials and toys during their daily interactions.
   
• Tell stories, use puppets and role play activities about making and keeping friendships;
   
• Model, demonstrate and prompt social and play skills;
   
• Promote special friends to the same classroom in the next grade;
   
• Provide environmental cues and social skills instructions;
   
• Encourage children to play together in certain areas;

(Kohler, Anthony, Steighner, & Hoyson, 2001; Ladd & Coleman, 1993).
 

Examples of supportive social environments

Positive peer interactions in early childhood settings are illustrated in the following video clips from the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL):

General cues for building peer relationships in supportive environments

1. Adult child conversations
2. Transition to centers
3. Providing individualized transition cues to Gabby
4. Circle activity
5. Stop/go friendship behaviors
6. Children demonstrate classroom rules
7. Positive reinforcement during sequencing activity

Talk about making and keeping friends, social skills and feelings

1. Giving compliments to friends
2. Hands are not for hitting
3. Glad Monster/sad Monster (story with activity about emotions)
4. Emotional literacy: Identifying happy, sad, mad and scared
5. Emotional literacy: Identifying happy/mad
6. Emotional literacy: Identifying pictures of emotions