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JUST WHEN DOES friendship begin? The wisest minds in child development can't agree. Many, like Alice Sterling Honig of Syracuse University, see something truly friendly in the giggles of two toddlers who stumble together in pursuit of a puppy. Others, like Claire B. Kopp of Claremont Graduate School, are more stingy with the term. They see friendship as a richer stew of trust and intimacy, something kids aren't able to fully appreciate-because they don't feel particularly bad about losing it--until they're 8 or 10 years old. But all the experts agree that something clearly happens when two children interact. If the kids aren't friends, they're learning how to make them.
Curiously, many parents don't worry as much about their child's social skills as they do about, say, his or her emotional development. In focus groups, parents have told researchers from the Washington, D.C.-based child-advocacy group Zero to Three that this is one area where kids who are slow can more, easily between play catch-up. That conjecture may be right or wrong--there isn't any convincing research on the subject-but it misses a bigger point: that the parents' own relationship with the child predicts volumes about his future capacity to make good friends.
Typically, children clumsily begin to hone relationships when they are toddlers. They learn about sharing, including and enjoying. Well before the age of 2, kids master "social bids," offering one another toys, looks or phrases. This also is the time when children begin "imitative play" and "parallel play." The former can be boisterous, with, for example, one child's happy claps being mimicked by a roomful of copycats. The latter occurs when kids play side by side with similar toys but without interacting; they may look as obliviously content as two cows in a field of alfalfa. By the age of 3 mutual play can evolve, not always happily, into rough competition for toys. Much as you try to silence the bickering, realize that it helps kids learn how to disagree with peers- and, eventually, how to get past quarreling.
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There are ways to help a child down this uncharted road to friendship. But don't fall for one-size-fits-all prescriptions. "Start with your child. What kind of kid do you have.'?" says Theodore Wachs of Purdue University. From there, pay attention. Don't hesitate to intervene if a play date is causing more tears than happiness, and make sure the toy chest is filled with the rag dolls, rattles, balls and stuffed animals that they like. Duplicates can't hurt. "You need a lot of equipment if you want friendships to develop," Honig says. "If one child is playing with a red ball, the other will want to do the same." By the second year, markers, blocks, music boxes and teeter-totters are especially popular tools for play groups. So are everyday household items that, transformed by a child's imagination, double as toys: don't be surprised if your toddler disdains the $30 marvel you bought him for his second birthday in favor of emptying big poker chips from a coffee can and then filling the can up again. No matter what the age, Honig says, "shoot for a level of difficulty that's doable if the children struggle."
Bungled efforts at play with other kids don't doom your child to a life without friends. As a glance around your office will confirm, not everyone masters friendship easily. Some youngsters draw their energy from toys or objects rather than people. Often, too, the problem is just a mismatch of play pals. "Age is the worst criterion for determining who should play with your child," Wachs says. "The styles of the kids are more important." Matching a leader with a follower is OK, but too many leaders can mean... well, look at Congress. You also can help your child learn to get along with others by running a quiet household. Wachs's latest research shows that the greater the "noise confusion" in a child's home, the poorer the quality of his social play in day care.
The least-mentioned tool for building friendships is an attitude that parents can teach by lecture or, preferably, by example. Honig and others think that the reason a toddler offers her bottle to a sobbing playmate is because we come into the world hard-wired for empathy and altruistic social behavior. Often, though, that sense of generosity gets bulldozed by too much parental emphasis on the individual--what's in it for me? There's plenty of time for the kid to learn about that.
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