Peer Relations and Social Competence in Childhood (original) (raw)

H istorically, it has been commonplace to assume that adaptive and maladaptive social development during childhood and adolescence emanates from the parenting and parentchild relationship experiences that children have had from the earliest years of their lives. The roles of parenting and parent-child relationship experiences were described in the psychoanalytic writings of Freud (1933); the social learning theory and research of such scholars as Sears, Maccoby, and Levin (1957) and Bandura and Walters (1963); and the seminal perspectives of attachment theory developed by Bowlby (1958). Clearly, parents do play a role in the development of adaptive and maladaptive development. So too do genetic and biological factors. Nevertheless, it is the case that from the very earliest years of life, children come into social contact with other familial (siblings, grandparents) and extrafamilial (caregivers, teachers, coaches, peers) sources of developmental influence. And with increasing age, the amount of time spent in the company of these nonparental influences increases significantly. Thus, in the present chapter, our primary focus is on the interactions and relationships that children and young adolescents experience with their peers.