Initially, when children are still very young & in the toddler stage, Behaviour Analysts point out, that the child often has not yet learned how to interact or play in socially appropriate ways with other children. Before a child learns to interact appropriately with their peers, their interactions with other children can often lead to difficulties, in terms of managing anger, tantrums, sibling rivalry, attention-seeking behaviours, & other behaviour challenges.
When parenting, it is possible for the parents to improve the child’s behaviour, by teaching the child how to play & interact appropriately with other children, (for e.g., so that the child shares & takes turns). Behaviour Therapists advise, that the parents supervise their child’s interactions with other children, intervene where necessary, & model & prompt their child on how to best respond to the other child.
A positive way to go about this, Child Therapists recommend, is for the parents to organise for their child to have play dates with other children their child’s own age. Initially, it is best to keep the play dates short, for example, 20 – 30mins, so it eases the toddler into it & sets them up for a higher chance of success as there is less likely to be altercations/negative behaviour if the time frame is kept shorter.
During the play date, it helps for the parent to sit on the floor opposite the child their child is on the play date with, with their own child on their lap. By setting things up in this way, it allows for the parent to be able to prompt their child on how to play nicely, while also enabling the parent to give their child lots of attention throughout, while giving the other child only a little bit of attention to begin with – as if their child is used to having all of the parent’s attention & isn’t used to sharing their parents’ attention with other children, the child may find this difficult to begin with, & they may present with negative behaviour as a result, so it is best to ease the child into it in this way.
Each time that a play date goes successfully, the parent can gradually increase the length of the play date the next time, & the parent can keep doing this until the length of the play date is lasting the average amount of time a regular play date would. The parents can then focus on gradually fading out how much they need to prompt their child with regards to how to play nicely. In the field of Behaviour Analysis, it is recommended that any interventions put in place, such as modelling/prompting, etc., where possible, should be aimed to be gradually faded out over time, so the child does not become reliant on it.
Over time, the toddler should become more used to playing appropriately with other children in the form of taking turns, & sharing, etc., & their social interactions should benefit from it.
