Adult intervention can hamper child social development

Janet Lansbury - Share… Wait Your Turn… Don’t Touch… Playdate Rules That Limit Learning (And What To Try Instead)

This blog post uses examples to discuss how to treat children who are playing together. The initial examples highlight potential conflicts between children and how they are alleviated not be insisting on "taking turns" or adjudicating who deserves the object of mutual desire (a toy that both children want), but by acknowledging the conflict and expecting the children to work it out themselves. The idea here is that using adult intervention in the conflict will not help children play together, instead it separates, focuses on objects rather than people, and trains the child to rely on the adult to manage a situation. While a firm "no hurting each other" rule is in place, most of the adults in the alternate daycare discussed here pay attention to a situation and reflect the situation as it unfolds, openly and verbally. The idea is to let the children learn that struggle in social interactions is acceptable, even expected.