Positive Relationships: Ask the expert ... Just shy?

'We have a three-year-old boy who attends nursery three days a week, usually with the same children, but he chooses to play alone. He seems quite happy but his parents are becoming concerned about his lack of friends and, as practitioners, we are wondering whether we shouldn't be making greater efforts to encourage him to socialise. What do you advise?'

Several threads intertwine when thinking about this issue. One is about his actual development and especially his level of play, another is what may be the quality of his social and emotional world. Third, what are the expectations of his parents? Finally, does his behaviour constitute a 'problem' or is it simply part and parcel of this little boy's temperament?

I want to start with the last thread. Sometimes, I worry that in today's busy world, the quiet and less forward child might cause concern because there does seem to be an expectation that we must all be sociable.

The rise of social networking sites, such as Facebook, may add fuel to the idea that it is our number of friends, rather than the depth and quality of our friendships, that is all-important.

In reality, for older children, teenagers and adults, deep friendships may exist with only a few people. We may also find that our friends can encompass a wide variety of people and varying levels of closeness. For example, there may be some with whom we like to share a hobby, meal or a shopping trip, while with others we may entrust deeply personal issues.

In addition, our own individual temperament will influence the type and range of our social life. Some of us are natural party-goers, while others are much more reserved. In between the extremes, there is a spectrum of 'approach/withdrawal' which can be influenced by context and experience.

All in all, our individual temperament, opportunities to meet people, circumstances and general experiences will all support or discourage our capacity to make friends.

Our capacity to relate to others, to have confidence and trust in ourselves and others develops in our earliest, pre-school years, scaffolded by the quality of our attachment relationships to our carers.

To positively relate to others, we need to have first learnt that we are loved. Such a growth of confidence is also supported by the opportunities we have to test the water of being with others, gradually learning about individual likes and dislikes, how we share and can understand another's feelings and, in our fourth year, how people's thoughts and beliefs can vary. We also learn that it is possible to manage our feelings in different situations - supported in this important learning by understanding and caring adults.

THE INFLUENCE OF PLAY

As well as the care, nurture and support of parents and other carers, play in all its aspects provides the context for our most valuable emotional and social lessons. Play has its own developmental trajectory, providing the bridge between all aspects of development as the type of play increases in complexity as we get older.

How and with whom we play also changes because we do have a natural tendency for solitary play as a toddler. We generally become more able to play alongside and then with others as we gain confidence in greater skills, including our ability to voice our needs and wishes. This phase usually begins around the age of three and so this little boy's preference for playing alone does not seem unusual to me.

It is not mentioned whether he only likes to play alone or whether he does play alongside other children. The latter might indicate that he is comfortable in their presence but not at the stage yet where he wants to play with them.

If we think about it, the growing complexity of themes of play such as going to the shops, the doctor's, the park, or acting out homely themes such as cooking, all invite the co-operation and involvement of others. From around three years of age, these themes occur and the levels of fantasy and role play are also becoming more involved, again allowing for more interaction with peers.

Children of this child's age, however, are still finding co-operation and sharing quite difficult and many children may also spend a great deal of time just watching and observing. This child's tendency to play alone does, then, seem to fit within a typical phase in his age range.

School-aged and older children differ in whom they regard as friends and 'best friends', the criteria being to do with trust and loyalty.

With younger, pre-school children, friends are usually linked with those companions with whom a child plays, and so as play becomes more involved, co-operative and inclusive of different children's strengths and capabilities, so the likelihood of a child saying they have 'friends' becomes greater.

As children play more together and seek out the company of the children with whom they can play most satisfactorily, such children may be perceived by observing adults as friends, while to the child they may be preferred 'playmates'. Therefore the more complex and abstract idea of friendship grows out of this play experience with some of the playmates transforming into a real friend. This implies that play is a powerful medium for friendships to be first forged in their simplest form.

Play allows for the expression of a range of opportunities for interactions: sharing, observing or simply learning what it feels like to be with and alongside others.

As mentioned, very young children will choose to play with children who make play enjoyable for them and will gradually choose to play with those who appear confident, pleasant and co-operative. Aggressive and bullying children will usually have few playmates and will go on to having few friends (if any).

MOVING ON

The practitioners say that the little boy in question appears 'quite happy' with his choice of being alone and so their interpretation may be correct in that he is simply at the stage where he prefers to play on his own. However, they may wish to observe whether he appears comfortable simply being with others and having them play close by.

They may also want to notice what type of play he engages in most of the time and whether he ever accepts someone else joining his play. They also need to observe him in a range of situations to notice his level of comfort or discomfort as he goes through his day, as this will provide some insight into his feelings about himself and his confidence with others. Does he ask for help, for example, when he needs it? Does he notice other children and ask what they are doing? His emotional world, his readiness for co-operative play will all rest on a range of factors.

Finally, practitioners may want to talk to his parents more about their worries, to find out who he might play with away from the setting and to discover what they feel about friendships. Perhaps they are very outgoing people and just find they have a very different and quiet child! The reality of whether this is actually a problem will depend on a number of factors and so the final rather prosaic advice is to listen, observe and reflect.

Maria Robinson is an early years consultant and author of From Birth to One and Child Development from Birth to Eight: A journey through the early years (Open University Press). Her Nursery World series on child development can be accessed online at: www.nurseryworld.co.uk/go/guides/

- If you have a behaviour query for Maria Robinson, please e-mail it to: ruth.thomson@haymarket.com