What Are They Doing? Early Connections With Peers

 

In the Twos class, entering the peer world starts in subtle, indirect ways. From early in the past year, it was apparent that the children in the Tuesday/Thursday PM Twos were alert to their peers’ activities: When a teacher observed aloud what a child was doing, others would look in that direction, and often some would wander over to see what was happening. For example, one afternoon a child declared that the wooden cubes near the entry door were a bus and plopped down on the front cube. Without speaking to her, other children approached. They turned over the cubes to sit in them, like passengers on the bus. Soon the group was singing along with teacher Jenna to The Wheels on the Bus. Meanwhile, two children were sitting with me at the play-dough table. One looked across the room at the “bus” and left to join his peers. I continued rolling the play dough and talking to the child still at the table. However, moments later, she turned to look at the bus full of peers behind her. “I’m going over there,” she said as she rose from the table. Rather than stay with the teacher, even in a situation where they could get direct adult attention, these children chose to play with their peers.

 

Similar situations arose when it came time to pick up milk from the school’s kitchen for snack time. It was not uncommon for the entire class, perhaps save one or two children, to flock to the door. Then a train of children would amble to the kitchen and back, with teachers accompanying them with a song. 

 

Given the tenuousness of 2-year-olds’ social connections, teachers can play an essential role in facilitating their interactive play. For example, they can offer props, highlight similar interests, introduce play scenario ideas and bridge social connections. However, psychologist Carollee Howes proposes, in a 1987 review of research in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, that teachers foster peer interaction in another way: by attending closely to toddlers’ play, but not intervening. This gives children the chance to figure out how to relate to one another on terms they mutually understand—and teachers will be ready to step in if needed.

 

The children’s interactions at the beginning of the school year often involved imitation, such as adding a seat to the bus. Such imitation involves not just seeing, but also understanding the other child’s behavior (What exactly are they doing?). These efforts challenge children to think about their peer’s intentions (Why are they doing that?).

 

Over the course of the year, as their language skills have developed, this attentiveness to peers has expanded to forays into interactive play. Interacting directly with peers, without a teacher mediating the exchange, is a big step. Adults make efforts to clarify intentions and ideas in a way that peers do not. Psychologist Celia Brownell and colleagues note the challenge in their 2006 article in the journal Child Development: “Toddlers’ nascent understanding of goals and intentions is put to stringent test in exchanges with one another.”

 

Harmonious social interactions are complex accomplishments, requiring more than just language. They also involve understanding nonverbal cues, imitation, how to control emotions and impulses, cause–effect relations, and how to share attention with someone else. Not surprisingly, pretend play with peers is challenging for these young children, who have not been in the world for very long. They are early in the process of learning to take another person’s perspective, identify their emotions and understand how to enact play scenarios with others. Their expressive language often does not reflect the breadth of their ideas. Given these challenges, the efforts they make are that much more impressive and delightful.

 

Two-year-olds offer each other help with "cooking" in the sand.

 

At the beginning of the year, most social exchanges were mediated by a teacher. By late winter, the children were making overtures directly to each other and responding to peer questions and comments. They were starting to see peers as true social partners. The experience of interacting with peers, rather than adults, tests and extends the bounds of children’s social understandings.

 

The following exchange is illustrative of the children’s growing interest in social contact and expressive language, as well as the challenges posed by miscommunications. I was nearby during this interaction and thought about entering to mediate and defuse a potential conflict, but decided to listen and see how the children would respond to each other. The children did an impressive job of defusing a potential conflict situation and working with the communicative overtures that peers offer. If I had stepped in right away, this would not have happened. 

 

 

The work these children did to gain a shared understanding is illustrative of the amazing growth children make in social awareness during their time in the Twos classroom. Their early awareness of peers and orienting to peer activity has blossomed into efforts to engage each other as true social partners.