Friendship Skills for Three-Year-Olds
Teaching Preschool Children about Taking Turns and Solving Conflicts
Three-year-olds don’t have many skills for solving conflicts on their own. During the toddler and two-year-old stages, children engage in more parallel play beside another child, rather than interactive play. At the age of three, children have not had much practice to learn respectful social behaviors and friendship skills. Three-year-olds still need direct help in solving conflicts with peers.
Three-year-olds spend a lot of time imitating adults, including situations in which adults solve conflicts. Because young children are “copy cats”, adults can teach friendship skills through appropriate modeling of respectful social behaviors. As well, parents and preschool teachers can verbally help young children move step by step through resolving conflicts with friends. Another way to help preschool aged children learn about problem solving is to offer two limited choices and let children choose one of two ways to solve a conflict.
Helping Three-Year-Olds Learn about Taking Turns
By 36 months, children can understand the concept of taking turns though they can’t always follow through with taking turns, especially if it interrupts their play or causes a conflict in their plan. A good skill to teach young children is how to ask a friend to play with a toy. Typical speech development allows most three-year-olds to use complete sentences. Children can learn to ask simple questions such as “Can I play with that next?” or “Can I play with that when you’re finished?”
Parents and preschool teachers can help three-year-olds learn the friendship skill of asking for a toy by modeling and by role-playing. Adults can make it a habit of asking, “Can I have that toy when you’re finished?” at least once a day, so that preschool children get to hear the phrase a number of times as well as practice giving an adult the toy. Preschool teachers and parents can also role-play with children first using a toy that is easy for a child to share.
Although three-year-olds may be able to ask, “Can I play with that next?”, they will not always remember the words. Caregivers will also have to squat next to children and prompt them to ask a friend about playing with a toy.
Helping Three-Year-Olds Understand Conflicts
Conflicts among preschool children are common and at age three, children have trouble controlling their impulses enough to use respectful skills to solve conflicts. A child may act quickly to get what they want realizing afterwards that their actions may have hurt others. Although preschool aged children are starting to make cause and effect connections, it is difficult for three-year-olds to completely understand cause and effect.
Preschool teachers and parents can help children understand a conflict by giving short, simple statements to children. Although the elements of a conflict may seem obvious to an adult, small children don’t always understand why their actions are a problem for someone else. The following examples show how very simple statements from adults can help three-year-olds connect cause to effect:
- “She doesn’t like it when you grab her toy”
- “When you throw sand, it gets in people’s eyes and hurts”
- "Hannah wasn't finished playing with the tricycle. You can play with it when she's finished."
Coaching a Three Year Old to Solve a Conflict
Typical three-year-olds do not know how to solve conflicts on their own and need direct supervision and coaching to work through a problem. Teaching friendship skills and conflict resolution skills to preschool children works best when adults stay calm and encouraging and when adults approach conflict as a natural part of friendships.
Body language is important and the best stance for coaching young children is for adults to squat or sit down in order to talk to a child at eye level. At age three, children can only focus on one step at a time, so preschool teachers and parents should give clear instructions one at a time.
When adults are coaching children to talk to another child about the conflict, it's best to tell a three year old the exact words they will say. Instead of saying, "Tell him you don't like it when he takes your toy", say, "Tell Nick, 'I don't like it when you take my toy.'"
Offering Limited Choices Helps Three-Year-Olds Solve Conflicts
Offering limited choices is a great way to suggest two ways that a young child can solve a conflict. Preschool aged children will feel independent getting to choose between two respectful ways to solve a conflict. When adults can think of two ways to solve the problem, they can offer both choices and let a child choose one of the ways. The following examples show how preschool teachers and parents can offer limited choices to preschoolers:
- “Do you want to ask him if you can play with that when he’s finished or do you want to find a different truck to play with?”
- "Do you want to give the toy back to me so that I can give it to Will or do you want to give the toy back to Will yourself?"
Adults can help young children learn about solving conflicts by providing step by step coaching to children. Prompting children with the exact words to say to other children and offering appropriate limited choices helps three-year-olds learn about and practice friendship skills.
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