What Are the Major Social Development Stages in Children

Every child goes through various social development stages right from infancy through their school age, your child goes through various social development stages. While every child is supposed to be different in its own way, most children meet their developmental milestones around the same period according to their age group. It might be easy to track their physical development but tracking social development in children is a difficult task. Social development in children plays a vital role in their life as that affects their relationship skills, confidence and self-esteem throughout their life.

Here is a list of social development achievements that you can expect from your children as they grow old with time.

• 1 Year Olds

A child responds to the environment from the moment it is born, but it requires time and patience to attain certain social skills. An infant might start making faces and imitating facial expressions. The kid also starts smiling at times and responding to its name. At this stage, the child perceives its individual identity. By the time kids reach their first birthday, they develop interest in observing their surrounding and other babies. They try mimicking their actions too.

• 1 to 2 Year Olds

A child’s language skills start improvising during this stage. However, kids may still prefer playing alone during this phase. Even when they start reaching out to other children to play, their approach might seem unsophisticated. In this age they still don’t understand the sense of sharing and cooperation. Toddler’s social interactions involve a lot of yelling and crying on common grounds.

• Pre Schooling Period

Instead of communicating through physical gestures, children are better equipped to express their emotions verbally, during the pre-schooling period. Higher confidence and independence allows them to explore relationships by themselves. By this time they also learn to share and show patience and empathy while socializing with other people. This is one important aspect of social development in children.

• School Age

By the age of 6, your child might have many friends and probably a best friend. However, that status might change frequently. In this time, they attain social skills and display respect, patience and kindness in rightful places. The early grade schooler might require certain parental guidance and reassurance, which will decrease gradually as they move forward to adolescence.

To support the things mentioned above, there are Erik Erikson’s Stages of Social-Emotional Development to summarise social development in children. The age by age development stages include Hope, Will, Purpose, Competence, Fidelity, Love, Care and Wisdom.