• Voluntary Partner
  • Your parents are forced to be your partner and interact with you, your friends have a choice of whether or not they will interact with you.
• Inexperienced Partner
  • You are put into a situation where a kid doesn't knowthat much more about being a friend that you do. For that reason you both are prone to making mistakes.
  • This may not always be a bad thing because having to do with hardships actually leads to resilience. 
• Influential Partner
  • You are not in complete control of the situation. When you are young this can definitely be a problem.
    
    • It is easier to control a math problem then to try and control a friend the same age as you so when you all are so young. 

1. Describe the various ways in which developmental psychologists assess peer interactions and relationships during the early childhood years.

1. Ways in which we assess peer relations
   1. Ask adults (parents & Teachers)
   2. Observe Children Directly
   3. Ask other children
2. What aspects of peer interaction do we observe
   1. Type of play
   2. Complexity of Play
   3. Emotional Quality
3. 4 outcomes
   1. Popular
   2. Rejected (stable predictor of behavior problems)
   3. Neglected (unstable)
   4. Controversial (unstable)
4. Which group do disabled fall into?
   1. Neglected
5. 2 shortcomings of rating?
   1. Difficult to generalize across peer groups?
   2. Instability of ratings (Neglected & Controversial)

1. Parallel Play (1st year)
   1. Two kids imitating each other; they may not be lookin
2. Complementary play including conflict (2 yrs. old)
   1. What one child is doing is dependent on another kids.
   2. Usually where most conflict is among two year olds
3. Cooperative Social Pretend Play (30-36 months)
   1. Playing with more than one child
4. Complex Social Pretend Play (42-48 months)
   1. Joint strategizing...more complex pretend play

• Provide opportunities for peer play
• Coach

These Kids:

• Have poor regulatory control
• Attribute negative intent to others
• Focus on issues of dominance
• View others as mean and hostile
• High cortisol level= stress
• Affilitate with other bad kids as they get older

• They are neglected/excluded from social groups
• They have problems:
  • Enter into social groups
  • sustain play
  • managing conflicts
• Exacerbated

1. Describe how Olson’s findings support a Transactional Social Systems Model of how early peer interactions contribute to the development of early conduct problems. 

Identify the behaviors that are commonly ascribed by peers and teachers to children with whom peers “do not like to play” (low-acceptance). 

• Peers
  • High on aggression, low on prosocial behavior
• Teachers
  • Aggressive, withdrawn, disruptive, & low on pro-social behavior
  • Saw them as especially aggressive and disruptive