Play With Peers Communication

Interest in and Communication with Peers
How does each child communicate with his or her peers? Is the child communicating through sounds, touch, eye contact, movement, or words? I observed children at the Sandusky Mall play area. There were a lot children between the ages of two and three years old. Most children have probably never met each other before, but that didn’t stop them from interacting. Some children were able to communicate verbally, others used touch and eye contact. The children who were able to communicate verbally made up stories and really used their imagination while playing. The children who used touch and eye contact would run around and look at each other a lot for reassurance. Sometimes it seemed like they were reading
Which children do not? The children that liked to play together were ones who were on the same level of communication. The children who were verbal played together and the ones who were not played by themselves or another child who was not verbal. The non verbal children would follow around the older kids and try to play, but they couldn't always keep up. I could also see that some “clicks” were forming. Children that looked alike were playing together and children who did not kept to themselves.
Conflict with Peers
How do individual children express anger and handle conflict? Conflict definitely arises when children are playing together. I saw an altercation between two children around the age of 2. I have no idea what they were fighting over, but I saw the one little boy push the other little boy over and he started to cry. The mother eventually went over to comfort her child and the other mother told her son to apologize for pushing him. The boy said he was sorry and they eventually started playing together again. It’s important to monitor children because situations like this happen all the time and parents and caregivers need to teach their children positive