Playground Politics

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Playground Politics

• Helping children make and keep friends
• Presented by
• John Waring Clinical Psychologist

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Outline of the presentation

• Understanding normal social development.
• Why are friendships important in a developmental
  context.
• How can parents and teachers assist successful
  social development
• The NGS junior school friendship skills group
  training programme
• Time for questions/discussion

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Psychosocial Developmental Perspective
Erik Eriksons Childhood Stages of Conflict
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Trust Vs. Mistrust (0-1 Year)

• Description Infants depend on others to meet
  their basic needs, and therefore must be able to
  blindly trust the caregivers to provide them.
• Positive outcome If their needs are met
  consistently and responsively, infants will learn
  to trust their environment and people in it.
• Negative outcome If needs are not responsibly
  met, infant may view world as a dangerous and
  unreliable place.

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Initiative Vs. Guilt (2-6 Years)

• Description Children begin to interact with
  environment in more adult like manner as motor
  and language skills develop. They learn to
  maintain an eagerness for adventure and play,
  while learning to control impulsive behavior.
• Positive outcome If parents are encouraging, but
  consistent in discipline, children will learn to
  accept concept of right/wrong without guilt, and
  not feel shame when using their imagination and
  engaging in fantasy play.
• Negative outcome If not, children may develop a
  sense of guilt and may come to believe that it is
  wrong to be independent.

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Competence/Industry Vs. Inferiority (6-12 Years)

• Description School is the important event at
  this stage. Children learn to master basic social
  and academic skills. Peers become the key social
  agent and children begin to compare themselves
  with others outside of the family.
• Positive outcome If children can find pleasure
  in learning, being productive, and seeking
  success, they will develop a sense of competence.
  
• Negative outcome If not, they will develop
  feelings of inferiority.

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Identity Vs. Role Confusion(12-20 Years)

• Description This is the crossroad between
  childhood and maturity when adolescents ask "Who
  am I?" The key social agent is the persons
  society of peers.
• Positive outcome Adolescents who solve this
  conflict successfully will develop a strong
  identity, and will be ready to plan for the
  future. Negative outcome If not, the adolescent
  will sink into confusion, unable to make
  decisions and choices about his/her role in life.

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Interpersonal behaviours at different ages what
to expect.

• Early Childhood Ages 2-6
• Unoccupied play
• Solitary play
• Onlooker behaviour watching others not asking to
  play
• Parallel play doing the same activity side by
  side
• Associative play starting to play together,
  sharing objects talking a little
• Cooperative play active coordinated play,
  swapping toys, taking on roles

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Middle Childhood Ages 6-10

• Life becomes much more social and complex
• 40 of waking hours spent with peers
• Increasing awareness of peers psychological
  characteristics, personalities and emotions
• Start to learn expected behaviours when
  interacting with peers
• Grow in awareness of others opinions
• Start to become more concerned about equitably
  solving conflicts and preserving friendships

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Early Adolescence Ages 10-14

• Post puberty children increasingly rely on peers
  for emotional support and recreation
• Self disclosure becomes an important element in
  friendships
• Increasingly self conscious
• Peer pressure

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Why are friendships important?

• While it may look like child's play, the
  relationships kids form with their peers from the
  young age of six months through adolescence exert
  enormous influence on their lives whether
  fostering positive feelings through friendship,
  or contributing to school-adjustment and
  later-life problems through bullying and
  rejection. ("Children's Peer Relations and Social
  Competence A Century of Progress," Gary Ladd)

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Functions of Peer Relationships

• Children see peers primarily as companions,
  sources of amusement, excitement and pleasure.
• Peers provide partners for practicing existing
  social skills and trying out new ones
• Peers socialize one another
• Peers contribute to a sense of identity
• Peers help one another make sense of their lives
• Peers provide emotional and social support

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Friendship

• Three qualities make friendship distinct from
  other types of peer relationships
• 1) they are voluntary relationships
• 2) they are powered by shared routines and
  customs (friends find activities that are
  mutually meaningful and enjoyable)
• 3) they are reciprocated relationships

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• Friends play a role in social emotional
  development that goes beyond that of peer
  relationships. Friends work harder to understand
  anothers perspective and work harder on conflict
  resolution due to their emotional investment in
  the relationship.

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What are friends for?

• Jeff aged 6 to play with
• Alex aged 9 Friends can help you in life. They
  can make you do better at school. They can make
  you feel better.
• Tina aged 12 To be your friend and help you in
  good times and bad times. Theyre there so you
  can tell secrets. Theyre people who care.
  Theyre there because they like you. Theyre
  people you can trust.

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Characteristics of Middle childhood friendships
(Ages 6-10)

• Children act differently with friends than peers
• More likely to express and regulate their
  emotions and to understand a friends emotional
  state.
• They strive to find equitable solutions to
  conflict in order to preserve the relationship.
• Develop a sense of loyalty.
• Girls likely to use self disclosure to maintain a
  friendship
• Become deliberate in their choice of friends

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How parents and teachers can help develop
socially competent children?

• Teach specific social skills and social problem
  solving strategies
• Plan cooperative activities (group work in the
  classroom, joint tasks at home for siblings)
• Label appropriate behaviours as they occur
• Ask to children to consider the effects their
  behaviors may have
• Make it clear aggressive behaviour ( physical or
  psychological) is unacceptable at school or home

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• Have children role play specific strategies
• Ask children in a group to brainstorm approaches
  to solving social dilemmas
• Encourage children to thing carefully before
  acting in difficult situations
• Give concrete feedback on effective and
  ineffective interpersonal behaviours
• Communicate the message that pro-social behaviour
  is desirable
• Be a good role model

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How can parents help?

• "To effectively change children's peer
  relationships especially undesirable
  relationships or reputations that have been
  entrenched for many years it may not be
  sufficient to increase children's social
  competence without also altering their peer and
  family environments,Children must be taught
  forgiveness and empathy, and must learn to be
  accepting of individual differences." (Ladd 2006)

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The long term benefits of positive peer
interactions and relationships have been shown in
a number of studies (Oden, 1986). Greater social
adjustment in high school and adulthood has been
observed for people who at 9 or 10 years of age
were judged to be modestly to well accepted by
peers. Poor peer acceptance results in fewer peer
experiences, few of which are positive, thus
creating a vicious cycle of peer rejection.
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• Why are Social Skills important to teach?
• Effectively interacting with peers leads
• to positive adjustment to school
• 2. Poor social skills highly correlates to low
• academic achievement
• We cant assume kids know to interact
• socially WE HAVE TO TEACH THE
• SKILLS!

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The NGS Junior School Friendship Skills Group
Training Programme
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Aim of the training programme
Following on from a successful pilot group in
2006 a decision was made to extend the friendship
skills group to all Year 4 students in 2007. The
aim of the friendship skills group is to ensure
all children have access to specific/timely and
developmentally appropriate friendship skills
training in order to maximise their ability to
make, keep and enjoy positive friendships.
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Outline of the Programme

• The friendship skills group takes place over five
  45 minute sessions run weekly with a 4 week gap
  between weeks 4 and 5.
• The programme is run by myself ably assisted by
  Mr Peter Sanders.
• The skills training sessions use a combination of
  open discussion, direct teaching of skills, role
  plays and fun activities to teach the skills of
  friendship.

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AGENDA Week 1 What is a friend? What does a
friend do? What shouldnt a friend do? Week
2 Making friends, Keeping friends, Inclusion
versus exclusion, good friends versus best
friends Week 3 Ways to solve
problems/comflicts in friendships How to
compromise Turn taking/sharing friends Attitude
make a choice to be a good friend
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• Week 4
• Trust, truth and lies in friendships
• Leadership
• Week 5 ( held after a 3-4 week break)
• revision and discussion of the new skills
  learnt and ways that the children have tried out
  the skills in their friendships