Children are developing many skills and concepts during early childhood that will serve as the foundation for their later success — basic literacy skills of reading and writing, the rudiments of the number system, basic science concepts, and even some of the technological skills necessary for succeeding in the 21st century. All of these skills are important and every quality early childhood education program will provide the time, materials, and teacher support needed for children to begin the process of developing these competencies.
A quality early childhood education program also has to provide the time and support for children to develop social competence.
All of us, children included, move through our experiences as individuals within various social groups. These social groups can include the family, the classroom, a particular religious institution, the soccer team or the Girl Scout troop. To function successfully and productively within any one of these social groups requires that we balance and integrate our individual desires, needs, and personalities with the needs and rules of the group.
In order to function successfully within a group, young children need to be able to self-regulate. They need to be able to monitor and control their own emotions and behaviors. The truth is that to be a member of a group you can’t always have what you want when you want it; you will need to learn how to wait your turn, share a toy, and cooperate with your friends.
Children need to develop impulse control and a willingness to delay gratification. A child has to understand that he or she can’t always be the leader. The child who continually insists on having things his way is all too often the child who struggles finding other children willing to play with him or her.
How, then, does a quality early childhood education program help young children develop social competence? First of all, teachers must recognize that developing social competence is a work in progress. There will be times that young children won’t be able to control their impulses, delay their need for immediate gratification, or understand the perspectives of other people.
For children to develop social competence, they need to have the opportunity to engage socially with other children. Programs must provide adequate time for children to play together in small groups. It is within these play groups that children have the experience of setting goals for the activity, assigning roles to the players, and negotiating the self-determined rules that will allow the play activity to continue.
Of course anyone who has worked with young children knows the social play process doesn’t always proceed smoothly; there are sometimes arguments, strong words, and hurt feelings. This is where the skilled teacher comes in, not to shut down the play or direct it from her perspective, but to help the children work through the problem by using their own language to draw their attention to what each of them is feeling and support their efforts to arrive at a negotiated solution to the problem.
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