Building up relationships is particularly important for children for their development and future happiness. In order to build up relationships children must be given the opportunities to mix with others and learn how to interact and communicate with others. This is part of the socialisation process, which enables children to build up the skills needed to have these valuable relationships with family members and create friendships. Learning these skills will enable the child to become confident around others and know how to be kind and how to fit in with others, therefore, having the opportunities to create good friendships. Babies start to have relationships from birth with their primary carer such as skin to skin contact with their mother when they are born as this helps with the bonding process. Around 6 months, babies start to become aware of others and will show interest in other babies, such as smiling at another. They also like to engage in focusing on adults such as an adult who plays such as peek a boo, and a child will laugh and interact back. This phase in development is known as pro-social behaviour. Once a baby grows and hits the toddler years, they begin to learn to be social and play alongside others. They will learn to copy another child in play. Increasing this skill means that by the age of around two to three the child needs to have more access to be able to socialise such as toddler groups where they will be able to mix and play with a range of other children. Learning to think of others feelings is also important when they are developing their social skills as they need to be aware of what could upset someone or what might hurt someone and by the age of around 5 8 y
ears children are able to begin to think about this and their actions. Like many developments, there is a general pattern to the socialisation process a child will go through providing they are given the time and opportunities to grow this skill. Firstly, they will develop a relationship within their family with their primary caregiver and then expanding this to other adults if they have siblings and from this, they develop a trust between these people who play a big part in their lives. Once they are confident and have a good foundation where they feel safe and secure, then they will have the confidence to expand their social area and start to learn to separate from those around them in a safe environment. This can mean that they will then have the opportunities to play with other children and begin to know about taking turns and sharing toys which in turn will mean they can learn to express their own preferences to certain toys etc. The more independence the child gains, they become more aware of themselves and therefore beginning to want to become a little more independent and start doing certain things for themselves. As they become more independent, they will come up against situations where there may be a disagreement with a child they are playing with, and they will need to learn what they need to do in these situations to overcome the issues and that sometimes they may not be correct in the way they handle it, but it is ok as they will make mistakes. But they can also learn through these mistakes. Finally, children will then be able to increase their confidence in themselves and when around others and really start to understand the feelings of others and knowing how to treat them.