Social Development: Sibling Relationships

For many children, the first social relationship they develop is with a brother or sister.  The sibling relationship is likely to last longer than any other relationship in one’s lifetime and plays an integral part in the lives of families.  Siblings have a tremendous positive impact upon each other’s development of socialization.  Characteristically, unlike many tentative peer relationships, sibling interactions are emotionally charged relationships defined by strong, uninhibited emotions (of a positive, negative and sometimes ambivalent quality), and intimacy.  As youngsters spend large amounts of time playing together, they know each other very well.  This long history and intimate knowledge translates into opportunities for providing emotional and instrumental support for one another: engaging in play, conflict, problem solving, sharing of ideas, and understanding others’ points of view. In addition, the age difference between siblings often makes the issues of power, control and rivalry a source of contention for children (Sibling Relations and Their Impact on Children’s Development, Howe and Recchia, 2006).

With the nature of the intimate, emotionally charged, and often conflicting relationship between siblings, parenting both children can be wrought with challenges.  Siblings of different ages and personalities may not understand when they are treated differently.  They engage more often with each other and so may enter into more conflicts.  Lacking conflict resolution skills, these conflicts may end in hurt feelings, hitting, and overall frustration.  At other times, siblings may show each other deep affection, collaboration, and support.  All of these behaviors are very normal and typical to the sibling relationship; a relationship that is in many ways personal to the children.

Sibling conflict or "rivalry" refers to antagonism or hostility between brothers and/or
Sisters, and can appear as arguments, fights, whining, nagging, etc. The root of sibling rivalry can sometimes be competition for parental time, attention, love and approval.   Other times conflict arises because young children are still developing conflict resolution, socialization skills, and language, and have not yet learned how to put these things to work for solving problems.  Helping support sibling relationships is as much about making sure to give both children equal love and attention as it is about helping children recognize, understand, and navigate their differences.

Ways to support your children’s developing sibling relationships:

Utilize all the methods for supporting peer relationships.  At it’s root, a sibling relationship is a peer relationship, just with an extra dynamic.  Find ways to encourage play through activities that involve teamwork and sharing of ideas.  Listen to your children’s frustrations and empathize.

Model Grace and Courtesy.  Give children lessons on how to interact in the home and solve problems.  Remember that how parents treat each other and other family members is modeling for how the children treat each other.

Recognize your own sibling dynamics and the impact on you.  Your role in your own family will impact how you approach your children’s relationship.  If you are first born, second born, etc, it is important to recognize how that experience impacted you.  Exploring your own issues growing up with siblings can help you better understand how and why you are making parenting decisions (for example, are you being harder on your first born because your parents were harder on you as a first born, or are you upset with your first born for hurting your second born because you remember that experience as a second born, or are you an only child who does not understand these relationships because you did not experience them?)

Give children your individual time.  Every child needs special time one on one with each parent and individually with both parents.  Design special “dates” that allow you to spend time with just one child, giving each child a turn.

Remember that fairness and equality are not the same thing.  One of the hardest things for siblings is when they are not treated the same.  Why are the rules for one not the same as the rules for the other?  As adults, we understand that children of different ages and temperaments have different developmental abilities and we cannot always have the same expectations.  Siblings, on the other hand, see themselves as peers and do not properly perceive these differences.  Rather than focus on “equality,” help children understand and accept each other’s differences by talking about them, and explain that decisions are made based on “fairness,” making sure everyone gets what they need when they need it.

Avoid placing parental responsibility on siblings.  It is not uncommon for parents to expect the older child to take care of or watch the younger child.  This, however, can cause some problems in the sibling dynamic by giving one child a dominant role and the other child a submissive role.  Instead, support and encourage your children to look out for each other, rather than placing the responsibility on one child’s shoulders.  Young children, even though older than their sibling, are not yet ready to handle parenting responsibilities.  It can also confuse them and make them “police” their sibling rather than play with their sibling (developing conflict rather than sharing and understanding).

Grace and Courtesy: Modeling Social Behaviors

In the Montessori classroom, Grace and Courtesy lessons are a continuous part of the curriculum.  These lessons encourage the children to become aware and mindful of what they are doing in the classroom.  For example, the child may say "I am closing the door quietly" or "I am walking slowly in the classroom."  We give these lessons by showing children step by step how to handle social behaviors for the first time.  While children learn so much from their environment, have appropriate social behaviors demonstrated makes social learning much more concrete for children.  As adults, we must also remember that children socially echo our own behaviors, so we must always be modeling the things we want children to do at all times.

Everyday kindness and courtesy are vital practical life skills and an important part of social learning.  Lessons in Grace and Courtesy teach everyday social customs, such as how to enter a room, not to disturb another’s work, how to ask if you may join in an activity, how to graciously decline an invitation, table manners, and how to offer an apology.

"We must help the child to act for himself, will for himself, think for himself; this is the art of those who aspire to serve the spirit. It is the [adult]'s joy to welcome the manifestation of the spirit." –Maria Montessori

Examples of Grace and Courtesy Lessons for Children:

Toddler

Eating Habits
• Using a fork and spoon correctly
• Chewing food with mouth closed
• Sitting quietly in chair during a meal

Toilet Training
• How and when to go to the bathroom

Proper Hygiene
• How to wash hands
• How to blow your nose

Manners
• How to say "please" and "thank you"

Primary

Social Skills
• How to greet people
• How to shake hands when greeting someone
• How to resolve conflicts (take turns when talking, express emotions, problem solve together, make amends for hurting/upsetting someone)
• How to help a younger friend/sibling

Proper Hygiene
• How to wash hands
• How to blow your nose

Manners
• How to excuse oneself when walking in front of someone
• How to interrupt when necessary
• How to hand objects to another person, especially sharps objects like scissors and knives
• How to say "please" and "thank you"
• How to clean up a spill
• How to open and close a door quietly
• How to pick up and carry a chair

Elementary

Social Skills
• How to work with another person
• How to resolve conflict (take turns when talking, express emotions, problem solve together, make amends for hurting/upsetting someone)
• How to mediate between friends
• How to help a younger friend/sibling

Manners
• Writing a thank you note
• Speaking politely to friends, family and teachers
• Being kind to others

Environment
• How to care for plants and animals
• Setting up a table for a meal
• How to clean and straighten a classroom or home
• How to serve in the community

Social Development: Making Friends

During the toddler age, friendships develop in a more parallel manner than directly.  Children at this age may be drawn to certain children, but play occurs more “side by side.”  Children at this age are less concerned with who wants to play with them, so much as they want to join in the activity.  For example, you may see a group of older children running around a field.  The toddler, wishing to join, runs around the field along side them.  The older children may pay no attention to the toddler, ignoring his very existence, but the toddler does not notice; the toddler is in parallel play, running along side, and in his mind he is completely part of the action.

As children come to the primary age, approaching three years and onward, they begin to play more directly and become more aware of each other.  Temperament can play a large role in how the child goes about developing relationships.  Some children are bold and charismatic while others are shy and quiet.  Some children have many friends while others nurture one special relationship.  Children are just at the beginning of this process and it can take some children longer to navigate the waters than others.

Ways to support your child’s development of peer relationships:

Offer opportunities for play and socializing.  Some ideas include: having friends over for play dates or lunch, participating in a carpool, group activities (such as art, drama, dance, music, or sports).

Give children unstructured play time.

Include your child when talking to people out of his normal range of peers. Take him to visit a neighbor, or bring him along to the dry cleaner.  The more exposure he has interacting with all kinds of people, the more he will learn to do the same.

Provide Grace and Courtesy lessons on how to approach a friend, join in play, or start a conversation.  These lessons can happen in the family and then your child can try them out on the playground.  Show your child how to be a good friend and make friends. The best way is to model the behavior you would like to see.

Provide emotional support to your child by listening to her stories about peers.  Try to develop relationships with her friend’s parents.

If your child has a hard time making friends, empathize with your child, but keep it in perspective. Making friends is a lifelong process and will of course have its ups and downs.  Be confident in your child and never share or show any anxiety you may feel about your child’s social relationships.

Help your child realize his own strengths.

Have a sense of humor about yourself and your shortcomings.

Listen to your child without criticism.

Model: be kind, give compliments, wave to friends, open the door for someone.

Be understanding of what others are going through by showing empathy.

Supporting Social Development in Primary Children

When we discuss the development of children, we must first look at the child’s plane of development. Dr. Montessori coined this phrase when she saw that children of particular ages shared certain focus, direction, and tendencies, emotionally, socially, intellectually and morally.  She observed three major shifts in children’s thinking as they aged and was able to identify three planes of development from birth to adolescence.

The First Plane of Development

Characteristically, children from birth to age six, roughly, fall into the first plane of development.  Considering that intelligence is what distinguishes the human species, the most important act of human development becomes the creation of intelligence and the creation of self.  In these first years, children develop their own unique intelligence and understanding of self.  Through an exchange between environment and a child’s tendencies, the child explores, learns to reason, learns to imagine, and learns to create.  Here, we find the formation of the personality.  The first six years of life are marked by tremendous physical and psychological growth, exploration and development. This is the period of infancy, an unconscious period of development.  Physically, the body develops from head to toe.  Children at this age are concrete thinkers.  Emotionally, he/she needs love and acceptance, respect and understanding, warmth and protection. The child also has a need for security, order, as much freedom and independence as he/she can handle, and social relationships.  At this point, children are laying the foundational blocks for later development.

Ages Three to Six Years (the conscious absorbent mind)

If children have learned to trust, by three years of age they will be able to confidently employ all their previously developed skills and move out into the world.  While children in the first stage of this plane learned unconsciously, absorbing everything around them, children now can direct their efforts more consciously.  Still, children have yet to develop a strong sense of will (the ability to control the body’s emotions and actions), so their conscious efforts may be more impulsive or emotional.

At this age, children now begin to need the social environment of other children, whereas previously they mostly need their primary caregivers.  However, during this stage, children tend to work side to side, rather than together.  Parallel play (playing alongside) may still be apparent at the beginning of this stage as children learn to navigate social interactions.  As children develop during this stage they begin to engage more directly with each other.  While children desire socialization, they still do not have the learned skills of managing socialization: conflict resolution, empathy and understanding, or general social propriety/graces.  These things continue to develop during this stage, and guidance from the adult is essential during this process.  

As children begin to develop empathy and the understanding of other children’s emotions, children begin to assist each other, share materials, and work together.  According to Montessori, society goes through an embryonic phase  (Montessori, Absorbent Mind, p. 232) in the period from three to six.  This can be observed in the children when “little by little, they become aware of forming a community, which behaves as such. They begin to feel a part of a group to which their activity contributes. They begin to take an interest in this community and work on it profoundly ” (Montessori, Discovery of the child, p.15).  Once they have reached this level, the children no longer act thoughtlessly but put the group first and try to succeed for its benefit.  Children during this stage are now able to understand differences between themselves and others, understanding that another child may need more assistance or is experiencing a different emotion.  Awareness of differences and the acceptance of them allows the child to develop a respect for all people, as well as themselves.

How to support the three to six year old’s social development:

Support and demonstrate conflict resolution.  Children at this age are just learning to understand how to solve problems, deal with emotions, and understand each other.  They may not yet have the language for talking things out or know how to make it happen.  Rather than solve the child’s problem, support the children’s ability to solve it.  Give them turns to speak, asking them specifically and non-judgmentally: “what happened?”  Give each child a turn to express what happened.  Ask: “how can we solve this?” or “how can we make this better?” and let the children offer up ideas.  In the Montessori classroom, we have a peace table where children can pass an object back and forth to signify their turn to talk and talk things out.  Children can often resolve a problem on their own when given the ability to have a back and forth discussion.

Model grace and courtesy.  Demonstrate the social courtesies of life, such as how to greet a person, how to say “please” and “thank you,” how to cover your mouth when you sneeze or blow your nose, how to shake hands, how to hand something to someone safely, how to interrupt when necessary, etc.

Support empathy by talking about the emotions of your child, self, and others.  Talk about what people are feeling and ways to make them feel better.

Do not force children to say “sorry.”  Instead, emphasize how they have made a person feel and ask them to think of ways to make reparations for their actions.  Model the word “sorry” by using it yourself when you are making a reparations, and talk about what you mean when you say the word sorry (“I feel badly and want to make it better”).

Give children language for dealing with the problem, should it arise again (“if David takes your toy, tell him “no!”).

Stay out of conflicts if they are resolving without violence.  Sometimes children can navigate social conflicts and need to be left alone to do so.  Take a step back and see if they are working it out or moving on from it before deciding if you need to intervene.

Direct children to find you if they cannot solve the problem on their own.

Supporting Social Development in Toddlers

When we discuss the development of children, we must first look at the child’s plane of development. Dr. Montessori coined this phrase when she saw that children of particular ages shared certain focus, direction, and tendencies, emotionally, socially, intellectually and morally.  She observed three major shifts in children’s thinking as they aged and was able to identify three planes of development from birth to adolescence.

The First Plane of Development

Characteristically, children from birth to age six, roughly, fall into the first plane of development.  Considering that intelligence is what distinguishes the human species, the most important act of human development becomes the creation of intelligence and the creation of self.  In these first years, children develop their own unique intelligence and understanding of self.  Through an exchange between environment and a child’s tendencies, the child explores, learns to reason, learns to imagine, and learns to create.  Here, we find the formation of the personality.  The first six years of life are marked by tremendous physical and psychological growth, exploration and development. This is the period of infancy, an unconscious period of development.  Physically, the body develops from head to toe.  Children at this age are concrete thinkers.  Emotionally, he/she needs love and acceptance, respect and understanding, warmth and protection. The child also has a need for security, order, as much freedom and independence as he/she can handle, and social relationships.  At this point, children are laying the foundational blocks for later development.

The First Three Years (the unconscious absorbent mind)

From the moment of birth, the infant ’s first “work” is that of personality formation or individuation. The personality is developed only by means of social relationships and experiences. Individuation takes place within a social context and is the first step toward social development.  The baby’s first social environment is the mother (or some primary care giver).  Maternal care is absolutely necessary not only for the child to survive physically but also to provide the mother-infant bond, which contains within it the possibility of all future social life.  A positive relationship with the primary care giver gives the child the ability to develop trust and secure attachment.  Infants are born with drives that urge them to relate to others and designed so that others can relate to them.  The first impulses to root and suck, to grasp and smile, to gaze and cuddle in the mother’s arms, are precisely those needed to establish and maintain closeness.

As children become toddlers, social development is mostly focused on the relationship with primary care givers and may extend to other caregivers.  Children at this age may notice other children, begin to engage with strangers (say hello), but it is usually from the security of their primary care base.  Social learning is focused on the environment.  Here is the information needed for the acquisition of spoken language, modes of behavior, and patterns of the culture. Customs, social attitudes and values, cultural habits, and ethnic idiosyncrasies all act to form the shape of the evolving personality. In the period of infancy, the mind takes in such impressions “like a sponge” (Montessori, Reconstruction, p.11).

While children are learning about the environment, they are still focused on themselves and their own experiences.  Children at this age are only at the beginning of the development of empathy and can rarely think outside the self.  They learn about emotions in context of their own emotions.  Children at this stage do not often share naturally (and may not be able to share) or consider the group as a whole.  They are focused solely on themselves and comfort from caregivers.  They interact with each other out of fascination and interest, but rarely evolve beyond parallel play (working along side each other rather than together).  As some children get closer to three, we begin to see the seeds of empathy and more interactive play.

Children at this age do not have a concrete understanding of morality.  For most, the seeds have been laid, and they have an inherent sense of right/wrong and justice, but they have no conscious understanding of this or how to apply it.  Everyone knows young children are innocent, naïve, and gullible: Small children, Montessori said, will accept and believe anything (Discovery of the Child, p. 298).  They blindly understand a behavior as “naughty” if it causes them to be scolded or punished. They have no moral conscience in the sense of being able to distinguish between good and evil. Nor do they have interest in such issues because they are “too immature” (298) to “understand or assimilate ” abstract notions such as “right” and “wrong.”  But, if the environment is warm and safe, however, and if adults deal “sweetly and kindly ” with them (Montessori, Discovery of the Child, p. 298), even the tiniest babies can develop a feeling for what is good.  They may begin to understand what is right and wrong as it is demonstrated to them, but they may not yet understand how to deal a situation in which another is “wrong.”  For example, most toddlers know that having something taken from them is wrong, but they do not know how to handle it appropriately (instead, either hitting in response or bursting into tears).  Appropriate responses will be learned through adult guidance and be available to the children once they have gained control over their bodies.

How to support the toddler’s social development:

Do not force sharing.  Rather, prepare the environment so that every object has a specific place.  Direct children to return objects to their places and let the other child know they may use that object once it has been returned.

Provide children with opportunities to socialize, but be understanding of their desire to remain closer to their caregiver.

Engage yourself in a play-oriented activity, modeling play for a group or pair of children.

Model grace and courtesy.  Demonstrate the social courtesies of life, such as how to greet a person, how to say “please” and “thank you,” how to cover your mouth when you sneeze or blow your nose, etc.

Give children emotional vocabulary.  Talk about your child’s emotions or your own emotions when experiencing them.  Point out other children’s emotions when you see them (“that child feels sad, he is crying;” “that child is happy, he is laughing,” etc.).

Encourage conflict resolution through demonstration.  Children at this age have limited vocabulary, so they cannot talk things out.  Instead, outline their emotions for them so that they can understand what took place (“Johnny is sad because you took his toy, he would be happy if you gave it back;”  “David was excited and took your toy, but that made you sad, would you like to ask him to give it back?”)

Give children language for dealing with the problem, should it arise again (“if David takes your toy, tell him “no!”).

Stay out of conflicts if they are resolving without violence.  Sometimes children can navigate social conflicts and need to be left alone to do so.  Take a step back and see if they are working it out or moving on from it before deciding if you need to intervene.