Create a Supportive Social Environment for Forming Friendships

Friendships are voluntary, and occur when children spend time together in shared activities, routines and rituals at home, school and in their community. However, 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 care and education providers to help a child form, and nurture, a specific friendship 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:

• Invite a child’s friend(s) to a family dinner or celebration.
• Encourage 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

Talk about making and keeping friends, social skills and feelings