Supporting Children’s Social Development: Strategies for Parents and Caregivers

This article addresses baby’s temperament and how a baby’s temperamental traits will influence the way caregivers interact with them. The more a baby’s signals are paid attention to and caregivers learn to respond appropriately to their unique personality, the calmer and more predictable life will be in the early months.

These tips, which are organized by age, are intended to help early childhood caregivers support children’s social and emotional development.

This article provides tips to help young children develop into a socially-competent person who can express their own feelings, empathize with others’ feelings, and be cooperative, generous and kind. 

This chapter from the book From Neurons to Neighborhoods discusses how establishing relationships with peers is a major developmental task that is not always easy for children.

This article provides information on teaching politeness to young children.

This brief discusses the importance of successful social interactions to promote positive social and emotional development in children.

This resource describes why social and emotional health matters, shows how to build trusting relationships and teach social/emotional skills to young children.

This webinar series, featuring short instructional videos, addresses positive relationships, modeling empathy, and the importance of social-emotional and cognitive development.

In this 80-minute video, Dr. Lilian Katz discusses ways of defining social competence in the early years, provides an overview of what the research indicates must be achieved in the early years, and indicates ways that adults—parents and professionals—can support and strengthen this important aspect of young children’s development.

This parenting resource provides information on how to help infants and toddlers develop strong relationships with the people in their lives. Through relationships, children discover who they are and learn to understand others.

This parenting resource provides information on how to help children develop the self-confidence they need for future success. Self-confidence is an essential ingredient for all aspects of your child’s healthy development and a key ingredient for school success.

This provides practical tips for caregivers to help infants and toddlers develop empathy and understand that others have different thoughts and feelings than they do.