The Power of Play: How Peer Relationships Shape Early Childhood

When children play together, something far more significant than fun is taking place. Behind every shared toy, every turn-taking negotiation, and every pretend game, children are actively building the social and emotional skills they will carry into adulthood. Research from the Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development confirms that peer relationships in early childhood are essential to psychosocial adjustment – not just in the present, but well into the future. For children with intellectual disabilities, these relationships matter even more, and they require deliberate, thoughtful support to flourish.

How peer relationships develop in early childhood 🔗

Children do not arrive at friendship overnight. The journey begins much earlier than most people assume. Studies from the Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development show that peers play important roles in children’s lives at much earlier points than previously thought, with experiences in the first two or three years having clear implications for how well children are accepted by classmates in nursery school and beyond.

During the toddler years, children typically engage in what researchers call parallel play – playing side by side, aware of each other but not truly interacting. This changes significantly as children enter the preschool years, around ages three to five. According to the Illinois Early Learning Project, parallel play gradually gives way to associative play, and then to cooperative play – where children begin sharing goals, negotiating roles, and genuinely collaborating. Each stage builds the social groundwork for the next.

By age four, children show a marked increase in interest in interacting with peers, and these interactions help shape their social skills, emotional regulation, and understanding of the world around them. What begins as simple exchanges – handing over a toy or rolling a ball – evolves into complex, cooperative play with shared narratives and mutual understanding.

The growing importance of friendships outside the home 🔗

As children grow, the centre of their social world gradually shifts. Research published in the Early Childhood Education Journal highlights what scholars call a “relational shift” – a child’s social world begins to expand during early childhood, and as children spend more time in preschool and daycare settings, they begin to rely more on peer relationships for emotional support and social learning. Friendships, even the temporary ones formed at this age, become more sustained and cooperative during the preschool years.

These early friendships are qualitatively different from relationships with parents or caregivers. Child psychology literature notes that social interaction with another child who is similar in age, skills, and knowledge provokes the development of social skills that are valuable for the rest of life. Peer interaction teaches children how to initiate and maintain relationships, how to manage conflict through turn-taking and compromise, and how to coordinate goals and actions with someone who is not automatically accommodating – unlike an adult.

Importantly, these friendships also provide an additional source of emotional security. Through shared play, children develop bonds that offer comfort and belonging outside the family unit – a sense of being accepted and valued by someone their own age.

Key benefits of childhood friendships 🔗

The benefits of early peer relationships extend across multiple domains of child development. They are not simply “nice to have” – they are developmentally essential.

Social-emotional learning 🔗

According to the Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development, peer play helps children master new social skills and become acquainted with the social norms involved in interpersonal relationships. Through repeated interactions, children learn when to share, when to assert themselves, how to read the feelings of others, and which behaviours are socially appropriate – and which need to change. Early friendships also help children develop empathy, a skill that cannot be fully learned from adult instruction alone but must be practised in real peer interactions.

Self-concept and social comparison 🔗

Peers serve as a natural mirror for self-evaluation. Social comparison with peers is an important means by which children evaluate their own skills, knowledge, and personal qualities. A child begins to understand what they are good at, where they need to grow, and how they fit into a social world – information that shapes their self-concept in lasting ways. This process of comparing oneself to peers also clarifies social norms: children learn, through peer feedback, what kinds of behaviours are welcomed and what kinds lead to exclusion.

Communication and language development 🔗

Play requires constant negotiation. Children must communicate their intentions, respond to others, and adapt their language to be understood. These demands make peer interaction a powerful driver of communication skill development. Research has demonstrated that peer relationships become a key socialising agent throughout childhood, influencing a child’s behaviour, self-perception, and attitudes as early as the preschool years.

Long-term psychological wellbeing 🔗

The consequences of peer relationships – positive or negative – reach far into a child’s future. A longitudinal study published in PMC found that early peer relationships are among the most important predictors of internalising problems in adolescence, including anxiety, withdrawal, and depression. Conversely, early positive friendships protect at-risk children against later psychological difficulties. Children who cannot form healthy peer relationships early in life tend to continue struggling with this as they grow older.

Promoting friendship for children with intellectual disability 🔗

For children with intellectual disabilities, the importance of peer relationships is no different – but the path to forming them often is. Experts from the Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development have stated that developing peer-related social competence should be a primary goal of early intervention and early childhood programmes. For many of these children, spontaneous friendship formation is unlikely without structured, intentional support.

Challenges children with intellectual disability face in peer interaction 🔗

Children with intellectual disabilities may experience delays in the very skills that peer relationships depend on – turn-taking, sharing, understanding another person’s perspective, and communicating intentions clearly. Research conducted in inclusive Swedish preschools found that even when children with intellectual disabilities were involved in the same play situations and used the same toys as their typically developing peers, their play was notably less social and cooperative. Teachers were also found to position themselves physically closer to these children – a well-intentioned response that can inadvertently reduce opportunities for peer interaction.

Additionally, a study on participation in early childhood education settings found that children with major disabilities spent significantly less time with peers and in social activities compared to children without special educational needs – pointing to the need for proactive, structured inclusion rather than simply placing children in the same physical space.

Strategies for supporting peer relationships in the preschool setting 🔗

Effective support goes beyond physical inclusion. Research reviewed by the Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development identifies a range of evidence-based strategies that work:

• Inclusive classroom placement: Access to a socially competent peer group is a key factor that determines the success of social interventions. Inclusive programmes should be the educational placement of choice for young children with disabilities, as friendships are far more likely to develop in these settings.
• Structured play opportunities: Rather than relying on free play alone, educators can organise specific activities that naturally bring children together, highlight each child’s strengths, and create shared goals. The ECE Resource Hub recommends intentionally pairing children and providing repeated opportunities for peer interaction so that children can practise skills with adult scaffolding close at hand.
• Peer-mediated interventions: A major systematic review published in Developmental Neurorehabilitation confirmed that peer-mediated interventions are well-established, evidence-based approaches for facilitating social relationships among children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, producing positive outcomes in peer engagement and the ability to initiate social interactions.
• Sensitising typically developing peers: Inclusion is most effective when typically developing children are also prepared. Educators can use age-appropriate conversations, books, and role play to help all children understand and appreciate differences, building a classroom culture where every child is genuinely welcomed into play – not merely tolerated.
• Teaching social skills explicitly: Skills like how to join a game, how to ask to take a turn, or how to respond when excluded do not always develop automatically for children with intellectual disabilities. Explicit social skills instruction – modelling, practising through role play, and reinforcing positive interactions – is a practical and effective approach.
• Family involvement: Research on family-peer linkages suggests that children learn and practise social skills within the family first, then transfer those skills to peer contexts. Supporting families to model cooperative, inclusive interaction at home strengthens children’s readiness for peer relationships at school.

The role of the early childhood educator 🔗

Educators occupy a unique position in this process. Their role is to facilitate connections without over-managing them – to create the conditions for natural relationships to develop rather than engineering interactions artificially. Child development practitioners recommend modelling inclusive language, highlighting commonalities between children, explicitly teaching friendship skills, and celebrating diverse friendships when they emerge. Acknowledging and praising positive peer interactions – however small – reinforces what children understand as expected and valued in their social environment.

Developing and implementing these interventions in partnership with families also enhances their relevance and sustainability, particularly for children from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. The Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development notes that interventions interwoven within the natural context of preschool play are the most effective means of improving peer interactions for children with disabilities.

Why this matters for all children 🔗

Building an inclusive, friendship-rich preschool environment does not only benefit children with intellectual disabilities. Typically developing children who grow up alongside peers with disabilities develop greater empathy, patience, and openness to diversity. Research confirms that early positive friendships protect all children – including those at risk – against later psychological difficulties. In a very real sense, making room for every child in the social life of the classroom makes that classroom a better place for everyone.

The friendships children form in their earliest years are not trivial. They are the training ground for cooperation, communication, and compassion – skills that determine not just how children get along with classmates, but how they navigate relationships across an entire lifetime.

What do you think? How can preschool educators go beyond physical inclusion to genuinely foster peer friendships for children with intellectual disabilities? And do you think typically developing children benefit from inclusive classrooms in ways that are currently undervalued in early childhood education?

References

1. https://www.child-encyclopedia.com/peer-relations
2. https://www.child-encyclopedia.com/pdf/expert/peer-relations/according-experts/early-peer-relations-and-their-impact-childrens-development
3. https://illinoisearlylearning.org/ielg/relationship-peers/
4. https://icaresoftware.com/peer-relationships-in-early-childhood-growth-challenges
5. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10643-023-01484-w
6. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/child/chapter/peer-relationships-2/
7. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4965647/
8. https://www.child-encyclopedia.com/peer-relations/according-experts/peer-related-social-competence-young-children-disabilities
9. https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/downloads/f4752s741
10. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08856257.2021.1920214
11. https://eceresourcehub.org/ece-resource-hub/core-skills/relate/peer-relationships/
12. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17518423.2023.2169878
13. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5737926/