Friends for Your 3-Year-Old

Now Is the Right Time!

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play a crucial role in your child’s success. Helping your child to grow healthy friendships is essential. Through relationships, your child develops a sense of belonging. They come to better understand themselves through their interactions with you, caregivers, teachers, and peers.

Children ages 3-4 are in the process of learning about themselves, their strengths, and their limitations. They are learning why they feel the way they do and how they relate to others. This is also known as their self-awareness.¹ Three-to-four-year-olds have not only taken notice of other children but also realized that play is much more fun when engaged with others. Play grows your child’s social and emotional skills. Children naturally practice cooperation, negotiation, inclusion, communication, flexibility, conflict management, and diversity appreciation in social play.

Yet, friendship is a brand new concept to your child, and they will face challenges. They may become upset and confused as friends move quickly from one interest to another and from one friend to another. Peers may argue about toys they want, who gets to be first in line, or who gets to play with whom.

Connecting with and caring about others is essential to your child’s development. Friendships will even affect their physical health, mental health, and well-being. Supporting their growing friendships can help you feel more competent as a parent or someone in a parenting role. The steps below include specific and practical strategies to prepare you to help your child through the ups and downs of growing healthy friendships.

Why Friends?

Your child’s ability to get along with and play with others can shape their experiences at the park, in playgroups, and at preschool or childcare. You can support them as they exercise their newly forming social awareness and relationship skills.

Today, in the short term, focusing on creating healthy friendships can create

• more significant opportunities for connection, cooperation, and enjoyment
• trust in each other
• a sense of well-being and motivation to engage

Tomorrow, in the long term, your child

• will develop a sense of safety, security, and self-belief
• build skills in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationships, and responsible decision-making

Five Steps for Growing Healthy Friendship

This five-step process helps you and your child develop healthy friendships. It also builds important, critical life skills in your child. The same process can be used to address other parenting issues as well (learn more about the process).

Three-to-four-year-olds are highly active and exploratory, seeking moments for imaginative play. They now can view themselves as a whole person with a body, mind, and spirit but are still learning to identify their big feelings. Your child is gaining skills and the ability to cooperate with others and work through conflict with pretend play.

Paying close attention to your child’s facial expressions, body movements, words, and sounds helps you better understand what they are trying to communicate. Your effort to learn from your child will create empathetic interactions that let them know you are interested in their thoughts. These interactions will help your child grow healthy friendship skills. In becoming sensitive to the nuances of your child’s verbal and nonverbal expressions, you

• are responding to their needs
• are growing their trust in you, sense of safety, and their sense of healthy relationships
• are offering greater motivation for you and your child to work together
• are deepening your ability to communicate with one another
• are modeling empathy and problem-solving skills

Actions

• Each time there is an opportunity, ask your child, “How do you feel? How do you think the other child feels?” 
  • For example, if your child is with others expressing feelings, help your child notice cues from other children’s faces and body language. For example, “She’s slumped over, and her face is frowning. Do you think she’s feeling sad?”
• If your child is feeling unsure about how others are feeling — or buried in their feelings —  consider asking questions like:
  • “What do you notice the other child is feeling?”  
  • “How do you know from their facial expression?”
  • “What does their voice sound like? How are they moving?”
• When reading books, look at the images of children or animals and guess the feelings by asking, “What do you think that character is thinking? What do you think that character is feeling?”

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, there is much to learn about understanding your child’s rhythms, temperaments, and needs. Because of this learning, you will make mistakes and even poor choices. How you handle those moments can determine how you help build your child’s sense of healthy relationships. Offering yourself the grace and permission not to be perfect can ease your anxiety in responding to your child’s needs. Learning about developmental milestones can help a parent or someone in a parenting role better understand what their child is going through.¹ Here are some examples:

• Three- to four-year-olds are copying or mimicking adult words and actions.
• Three- to four-year-olds are growing in empathy for others and will attempt to comfort another crying child and show affection for others without prompting.
• Three- to four-year-olds can carry a conversation by offering two to three sentences but do not yet have an emotional vocabulary and cannot describe their body sensations when upset or dealing with big feelings. A feelings vocabulary takes longer to develop.
• Three- to four-year-olds are eager to play pretend play independently and cooperatively with other children. Through play, children gain vital practice with all of their developmental milestones.
• Three- to four-year-olds can show defiant behavior and test boundaries as they learn about the rules and attempt to understand your values.
• Three- to four-year-olds can show a broader range of feelings.
• Three- to four-year-olds may begin to experience separation anxiety when you leave them.
• Three- to four-year-olds can imagine what response might be appropriate or comforting in a particular situation.
• Three- to four-year-olds are beginning to notice differences, including culture and race, making it critical to discuss inclusion and the essential nature of different perspectives for them to learn.

Teaching is different than just telling. Teaching builds basic skills, grows problem-solving abilities, and prepares your child for success. Teaching also involves modeling and practicing the positive behaviors you want to see, promoting skills, and preventing problems.

Actions

• Read and pretend play together.
  • Use reading time and select a book of faces to help your child learn to identify the different feelings of other children. Point out how you can tell each child’s feelings, and practice recreating those cues with your child.
  • After reading a story together, act out the plot and use feeling words and expressions to match how the characters feel throughout the story. This expands their feelings vocabulary and teaches them how to recognize a wide range of perspectives and feelings they might not encounter in daily interactions with others.
• Share your thoughts and feelings. Talk about what you notice, how you are feeling, and why you are feeling it. “I am excited to see my friend because I haven’t seen her in a long time. Can you tell? I have a big smile on my face.”
• Talk aloud about how you respond to your big feelings. “I’m going to take a few deep breaths before I ask my friend for help because I am a little nervous.”
• Develop empathy. In addition to developing these essential skills that lead your child to act as a good friend, there are beliefs and attitudes you can promote to help them, too. For example, when your child points a blaming finger, saying, “He did it!” you may respond with
  • “What do you think he’s feeling?”
  • “What choice would you make if you were sad or hurt?”
  • “What do you think could make him feel better?”

Your daily routines allow your child to practice new vital skills if you seize those chances. With practice, your child will improve as you allow them to support. Practice grows vital new brain connections that strengthen (and eventually form habits) each time your child works hard toward a goal or demonstrates belief in themself.

Practice also provides essential opportunities to grow self-efficacy – a child’s sense that they can do a task successfully. This leads to confidence. It helps them understand that mistakes and failures are part of learning.

Actions

• Provide opportunities for your child to meet and interact with other children and adults of all ages, races, and cultures. Point out similarities and differences. Talk about how differences help us learn more about ourselves and others.
• When out in your community and running errands with your child, make introductions and involve your child in conversations with others, such as neighbors, the coffee shop barista, or the grocery cashier.
• Use “Show me…” statements with a positive tone and body language to express excitement and curiosity…”. When children learn a new ability, they are eager to show it off! Give them that chance. “Show me how you can introduce yourself to our new friend.” 
• Recognize effort using “I notice…” statements like: “I noticed how you included your new friend when playing games at the park. That’s excellent!”
• Schedule playdates. Playdates can become an invaluable practice for your child. They build connections and help your child practice the skills you’ve taught them. For young children, short playdates might be best so the child doesn’t become overwhelmed or too tired. It is okay for parents or those in a parenting role to be present at the playdate until the child is comfortable with the new environment.

At this point, you’ve taught your child how to connect with and care about others, and you are allowing them to practice so they can learn to use their new skills well. Now, you can offer continued positive support when it’s needed by reteaching, monitoring, and coaching. Parents and those in a parenting role naturally provide support when they see their children are in a situation where they need help. This is no different.

Actions

• Learn about development. Each new age and stage will present differing social challenges. You will gain empathy and patience by becoming informed about the developmental milestones your child is working toward.
• Recognize effort using “I notice…” statements: “I noticed how you started playing with that new girl on the playground. I love seeing that.”
• On days with extra challenges, when you can see your child is scared of new people or situations, offer confidence in your child’s ability to face the new. In a gentle, non-public way, you can whisper in your child’s ear, “Remember how you enjoyed meeting my friend Susie. Anna is kind, too. You might enjoy meeting her today.”  If your child still seems uncomfortable meeting a new person, honor their hesitancy and do not force it. This is an excellent opportunity to model consent.
• Actively reflect on how your child is feeling when approaching challenges. You can offer reflections like
  • “You seem worried about meeting your new friend at the park. I’ll hold your hand so that you feel more confident.” Offering comfort when facing new situations can help your child gain a sense of security and face them rather than backing away.
  • You can also offer comfort items to help your child face new challenges. “Would your bear help you feel more confident?” 
• Stay engaged. Working together on ideas for trying out new and different friendship-building strategies can offer additional support and motivation for your child when challenging issues arise.

No matter how old your child is, your positive reinforcement and encouragement have a significant impact.

If your child is working to grow their skills – even in small ways – it will be worthwhile to recognize it. Your recognition can go a long way in promoting positive behaviors and expanding your child’s confidence. Your recognition also encourages safe, secure, and nurturing relationships — a foundation for strong communication and a healthy relationship with you as they grow.

There are many ways to reinforce your child’s efforts. It is essential to distinguish between three types of reinforcement: recognition, rewards, and bribes. These three distinct parenting behaviors have different impacts on your child’s behavior.

Recognition occurs after you observe the desired behavior in your child. Noticing and naming the specific behavior you want to reinforce is key to promoting more of it. For example, “You shared your toys with your friend — I love seeing that!”  Recognition can include nonverbal acknowledgment such as a smile, high five, or hug.

Rewards can be helpful in certain situations by providing a concrete, timely, and positive incentive for doing a good job.  A reward is determined beforehand so the child knows what to expect, like “If you show me that you can share with your friend on this playdate, we will get a treat on the way home.” (If you XX, then I’ll XX.) It stops any negotiations in the heat of the moment.  A reward could be used to teach positive behavior or break a bad habit. The goal should be to help your child progress to a time when the reward will no longer be needed. If used too often, rewards can decrease a child’s internal motivation.

Unlike a reward, bribes aren’t planned ahead of time and generally happen when a parent or someone in a parenting role is in the middle of a crisis (like in the grocery store checkout line and a child is having a tantrum. To avoid disaster, a parent offers to buy a sucker if the child will stop the tantrum). While bribes can be helpful in the short term to manage stressful situations, they will not grow lasting motivation or behavior change and should be avoided.

Actions

• Recognize and call out when things are going well. It may seem obvious, but it’s easy not to notice when everything moves smoothly. Noticing and naming the behavior provides the necessary reinforcement that you see and value your child’s choice. For example, when your child shares with a friend, a short, specific call-out is needed: “You were a good friend when you shared your toys today. Excellent.”
• Recognize small steps along the way. Don’t wait for significant accomplishments—like the full bedtime routine going smoothly—to recognize effort. Remember that your recognition can work as a tool to promote more positive behaviors. Find small ways your child is making an effort and let them know you see them.
• Build celebrations into your routine. For example, snuggle and read before bed after getting through your bedtime routine. Or, in the morning, once ready for school, take a few minutes to listen to music together.

Closing

Engaging in these five steps is an investment that will strengthen your skills as an effective parent or someone in a parenting role on many other issues and develop essential skills that will last a lifetime for your child. Through this tool, children can become more self-aware, deepen their social awareness, exercise their self-management skills, work on their relationship skills, and demonstrate and practice responsible decision-making.