Play and Peers

Developmental Task of Middle Childhood: Industry vs. Inferiority

According to Erikson, children in middle and late childhood are very busy and industrious (Erikson, 1982). They are constantly doing: Planning, playing, getting together with friends, problem solving, trying things out, and learning. This is a very active time, and a time when they are gaining a sense of how they are doing compared with their peers. Erikson believed that if these industrious children can be effective in their endeavors, they will get a sense of confidence for future challenges. If instead, a child feels that they are not measuring up to their peers, feelings of inferiority and self-doubt will develop. These feelings of inferiority can, according to Erikson, last into adolescence and even adulthood.

To help children successfully negotiate this stage, they should be encouraged to explore and expand their capacities. They should be given authentic feedback as well. Failure is not necessarily a bad thing according to Erikson. Indeed, failure is a type of feedback which may help a child learn and grow, as well as form a sense of modesty. A balance of competence and modesty is ideal for creating a sense of industry in the child.

The Role of Play in Development

What is Play?

Play can be hard to define, but we know it when we see it. Play involves enjoyable activities that are self-directed (not goal-directed) and enjoyable for their own sake. They are fun and absorbing. Play is spontaneous; children are intrinsically motivated to play. Play may be done alone or with others. It often has a pretend or make-believe quality.

Play is found at all ages and in all cultures (Chu & Schulz, 2020). In fact, it is also found across many species. Play begins in infancy. Vygotsky and Piaget saw play as a way for children to develop their cognitive capacities (Colliver & Veraksa, 2021; Dyer & Moneta, 2006; Vygotsky, 2016). In fact, Piaget called play “a child’s work.” Subsequent research has shown that play provides many positive outcomes for children in all domains of development (Chu & Schulz, 2020). The activity of play provides children opportunities to exercise all their developing capacities: physical, cognitive, emotional, and social (Doebel & Lillard, 2023).

Types of Play

In a classic study, Parten (1932) observed two to five-year-old children and noted six types of play: Three labeled as non-social play (unoccupied, solitary, and onlooker) and three categorized as social play (parallel, associative, and cooperative). The following Table describes each type of play. Younger children engage in non-social play more than older children; by age five associative and cooperative play are the most common forms of play (Dyer & Moneta, 2006).

Table 6.1 Parten's Classification of Types of Play in Preschool Children

adapted from Paris, Ricardo, & Rymond, 2019

Pretend Play

Pretense is a familiar characteristic of play. Pretend play can be combined with physical play or playing with objects. When pretending, children act "as-if." They engage in make-believe. Their words and actions are not literal, but evoke something beyond what is concretely present (Lillard, Lerner, Hopkins, Dore, Smith, and Palmquist, 2015). In his study of cognitive development, Piaget was interested in pretend play and he documented the way in which it involved symbolic thought, that is, the ability to have a symbol represent something in the real world. A toy, for example, has qualities beyond the way it was designed to function, and can be used to stand in for a character or a completely different object. A banana can be used as a telephone. As seen in the study of early childhood, symbolic thought is an important capability developed at the end of the sensorimotor stage that paves the way for the development of language. Pretend play expresses and exercises these capabilities.

A the same time, pretend play also goes beyond symbolic thought and mental representation. It also requires the use of fantasy and imagination (Sobel & Lillard, 2001). Imagination is distinct from, but jointly engaged during play with executive function, including the developing capabilities of memory, inhibition, and attention shifting (Carlson & White, 2013; Doebel & Lillard, 2023).

A complex form of pretend play emerges in Parten’s last two stages, associative play, and cooperative play. This new form is sociodramatic play, which is make-believe play with others, involving objects and actions woven into some kind of imagined situation or story. It is often scaffolded in play with adults or older children. As the development of sociodramatic play progresses, children begin acting out roles. They use situated imaginary identities as the basis of action and to create story lines.

Through the creation of settings, roles, and narrative, imagination is used to explore ideas about what follows what, and about how things unfold in the world (Deunk, Berenst, & De Glopper, 2008). Perspective taking is improved through this social form of pretend play. Emotional development is also fostered by sociodramatic play, as children choose imagined interpretations and responses to imagined emotions in pretend situations, and respond to emotions that arise in actual conflict generated between playmates. Perspective taking and dealing with emotions during pretend play contribute to the development of emotion and self-regulation (Gioia & Tobin, 2020).

Physical Activity, Physical Education, and Sports

During middle childhood, just as during every other age, it is crucial for children to be physically active (Carson et al., 2016; Zeng et al., 2017). In fact, one of the pathways through which play confers benefits on development is by encouraging and sustaining physical activity.

Healthy children naturally want to be doing things like running, jumping, and climbing, but they need opportunities to do so. Sometimes, if children have been sedentary for a while (due to school or screens), they may also need encouragement and scaffolding from adults. Since exercise is good for adults, too, physical activities that involve the entire family present a win-win situation for all ages. If families have the time and resources, physical activities like walking, biking, hiking, swimming, and gardening are good for everyone. Families can even incorporate physical activity into social justice activities, like marches and beach clean-ups.

As described in more detail below, schools also play an important role in helping children stay physically active, by providing recess time, playgrounds, and access to organized physical activities, like sports, dance, drumming, and cheer. These activities are most developmentally promotive when they are open access, and include all children and adolescents. Any specialized try-outs that privilege children who have already developed certain physical skills may end up excluding the very children who could benefit from physical activity the most. Cooperative, joyful, and inclusive activities promote not only physical health, but social, emotional, and psychological development as well.

Society also has a key role to play. We can help make sure that schools have the resources they need to provide physical education and extracurricular activities that involve physical exercise. We can also help by providing access to public spaces that allow and encourage physical activity, like safe neighborhoods, public parks and playgrounds, swimming pools, and community centers for sports, dance, rock climbing, martial arts, yoga, and other physical activities. Communities can themselves set up opportunities for children to participate in heritage physical activities that reflect different cultural backgrounds, like community gardens, dance, fishing, and martial arts.

Physical Education. For many children, physical education in school is a key component in introducing children to sports and regular physical activity. After years of schools cutting back on physical education programs, there has been a turnaround, prompted by concerns over childhood obesity and related health issues. Despite these changes, according to a recent meta-analysis (An, Liu, & Liu, 2021), only the state of Oregon and the District of Columbia currently meet PE guidelines of a minimum of 150 minutes per week of physical activity in elementary school and 225 minutes in middle school.

Experts also recommend changing the typical content of these classes. Training on competitive sports, often a high priority, is unlikely to reach the least physically fit youngsters. Instead, programs could emphasize cooperation, enjoyable informal games, and individual exercise. These activities, like games, running, hiking, dancing, yoga, or martial arts, are more likely to be incorporated into daily routines and become lifelong habits.

Organized Sports. Middle childhood is also a time when many children are introduced to organized sports, most often by their parents and schools. Nearly 3 million children play soccer in the United States (United States Youth Soccer, 2025). This activity promises to help children improve athletically, learn a sense of competition and teamwork, and build social skills.

However, it has been suggested that the emphasis on competition and athletic skill can be counterproductive and lead children to grow tired of the game and want to quit. In many respects, it appears that children's activities are no longer children's activities once adults become involved and approach the games as adults rather than children. The U. S. Soccer Federation recently advised coaches to reduce the amount of drilling engaged in during practice and to allow children to play more freely and to choose their own positions. The goal is to build on their love of the game and foster their natural talents.

Benefits of Physical Activity. Physical activities, like sports, are important for children. Children’s participation in sports has been linked to:

• Higher levels of satisfaction with family and overall quality of life in children
• Improved physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development
• Better physical and mental health
• Stronger academic performance

Disparities in Access to and Participation in Physical Activities. Unfortunately, not all children and youth have opportunities to participate in healthy physical activities. Disparities in both access and participation have been documented by gender, socioeconomic status, and race (Kuhn et al., 2021; Tamura et al., 2021; Tandon et al., 2021; Veliz et al., 2024). At the root of many of these disparities are residential and school segregation by race, ethnicity, and social class, as well as stereotypes and prejudices about who can do certain physical activities and sports.

For example, studies on children’s sports in the United States (Kuhn et al., 2021; Sabo & Veliz, 2008) have found that gender, poverty, location, ethnicity, and disability can limit opportunities to engage in sports. Girls were more likely to have never participated in any type of sport. They also found that fathers may not be providing their daughters as much support as they do their sons. While boys rated their fathers as their biggest mentors who taught them the most about sports, girls rated coaches and physical education teachers as their key mentors. Sabo and Veliz also found that children in suburban neighborhoods had a much higher participation of sports than boys and girls living in rural or urban centers. In addition, Caucasian girls and boys participated in organized sports at higher rates than minority children.

Students don’t always persist in their participation in extracurricular and other organized sports activities. According to a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics, about 70% of children drop out of organized sports by the age of 13, typically because they do not find them fun any more. For example, in their study Sabo and Veliz (2008) asked children who had dropped out of organized sports why they left. For both girls and boys, the number one answer was that it was no longer any fun (see Table). While there are many factors involved in the decisions to drop out, one suggestion has been the lack of training that coaches of children’s sports receive may be contributing to this attrition (Barnett, Smoll & Smith, 1992). Several studies have found that when coaches receive proper training, the drop-out rate is about 5% instead of the usual 30% (Fraser-Thomas, Côté, & Deakin, 2005; SPARC, 2013).

Table 6.2 Top Reasons Dropped Out or Stopped Playing Organized/Team Sports

Source: Sabo, D., & Veliz, P. (2008). Go Out and Play: Youth Sports in America. East Meadows, NY: Women’s Sports

Based on the many developmental benefits of physical activity, it is important for all of us to work together to transform schools, neighborhoods, and communities, as well as practices within physical education classes and organized sports, so that all children and adolescents have opportunities to participate in fun and invigorating physical activities. Regular participation in physical exercise is good for children and youth at every age, helping to improve cardiovascular and brain health and prevent obesity. They are also the foundation for lifelong hobbies and habits that provide mental and physical health benefits across the lifespan.

Friendship and Peer Relationships

Friendships and peer relationships are important to children and youth, and in fact to all of us, all across the lifespan. Young children typically become interested in peers during the preschool years, and by middle childhood and adolescence, all forms of relationships with age mates-- including friends, buddies, peer groups, classmates, cliques, crowds, social media personalities, and so on-- are of central importance to their wellbeing and development. It can be challenging for children and youth to negotiate the changing world of peers, and sometimes adults underestimate its complexity and impact. When kids lose blocks of time with their peers, like during the pandemic, it can take a while for their social development to catch up and fully recover .

Friendships and peer relationships are voluntary associations characterized by some degree of similarity and affiliation. Compared to research on the effects of parents on children's development, the study of peers was slow to get started and even today, peers are often overlooked as important influences on children and youth. However, over the last several decades, an impressive array of empirical evidence has accumulated. Most persuasive are longitudinal studies that use qualities of peer relationships to predict changes in developmental outcomes over time.

For example, a comprehensive review and meta-analysis of such studies (Giletta et al., 2021) indicated that peers can have an impact on wide variety of aspects of behavior, functioning, and wellbeing (e.g., social skills, academic performance, indicators of mental health) all across childhood and adolescence. The abstract for the meta-analysis is presented below. Researchers conclude that "results provide the most thorough and comprehensive synthesis of childhood and adolescent peer influence to date, indicating that peer influence occurs similarly across a broad range of behaviors and attitudes" (Giletta et al., 2021, p. 719).

Three separate research traditions focus on peer relationships. First, there is the study of friendships, which are dyadic relationships involving emotional closeness and reciprocity. A second tradition examines peer groups, or groups of affiliated peers who spend time together and interact with each other. In adolescence, these groups include actual buddies, but also cliques and crowds. A third tradition focuses on sociometrics, or the study of agemate status and popularity. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Friendship

As toddlers, children may begin to show a preference for certain playmates (Ross & Lollis, 1989). However, peer interactions at this age more often involve parallel play rather than selective and intentional social interactions (Pettit, Clawson, Dodge, & Bates, 1996). By age four, many children use the word “friend” when referring to certain children and do so with a fair degree of stability (Hartup, 1983). However, among young children “friendship” is often based on proximity, such as a friend who lives next door or attends the same school, or they label as "friend" anyone they happen to be playing with at the time (Rubin, 1980).

During middle and late childhood, friendships become central. They become increasingly important to children's feelings of worth, competence, and attractiveness. Friendships provide the opportunity for learning social skills, such as how to communicate and how to negotiate differences and conflict. Children problem solve together, get ideas from one another about how to perform certain tasks, how to fit in, what to wear or say, and how to act.

In general, friends act as mates, models,  and buffers as children develop. For example, peers can impact a child's self-esteem, as any parent who has tried to console a rejected child will tell you. No matter how supportive a parent may be, being rejected by one's friends can only be remedied by renewed acceptance. As relationships between equals, friendships also act as a training ground for future romantic relationships, which (as described later) are stronger if they are built on high quality friendships first. This burgeoning society of children marks a transition from a life focused on the family to a wider life that is also concerned with peers.

Children’s conceptualization of what makes someone a “friend” also changes from a more egocentric understanding to one based on mutual trust and commitment. Both Bigelow (1977) and Selman (1980) believe that these changes are linked to advances in cognitive development. For example, Bigelow and La Gaipa (1975) outline three stages in children’s conceptualizations of friendship.

1. In stage one, reward-cost, friendship focuses on mutual activities. Children in early, middle, and late childhood all emphasize similar interests as the main characteristics of a good friend.
2. Stage two, normative expectation focuses on conventional morality; that is, the emphasis is on a friend as someone who is kind and shares with you. Clark and Bittle (1992) found that, compared to third or eighth graders, fifth graders emphasized this more in a friend.
3. In the final stage, empathy and understanding, friends are people who are loyal, committed to the relationship, and share intimate information. Clark and Bittle (1992) reported eighth graders emphasized this most in a friend. They also found that as early as fifth grade, girls were starting to include sharing of secrets, and not betraying confidences as crucial to someone who is a friend.

In a similar vein, Selman (1980) outlines five stages of friendship from early childhood through to adulthood:

1. Momentary physical interaction, a friend is someone who you are playing with at this point in time. Selman notes that this is typical of children between the ages of three and six. These early friendships are based more on circumstances (e.g., a neighbor) than on genuine similarities.
2. One-way assistance, a friend is someone who does nice things for you, such as saving you a seat on the school bus or sharing a toy. However, children in this stage, do not always think about what they are contributing to their relationships. Nonetheless, having a friend is important and children will sometimes put up with a not so nice friend, just to have a friend. Children as young as five and as old as nine may be in this stage.
3. Fair-weather cooperation, children are very concerned with fairness and reciprocity, and thus, a friend is someone returns a favor. In this stage, if a child does something nice for a friend there is an expectation that the friend will do something nice for them at the first available opportunity. When this fails to happen, a child may break off the friendship. Selman found that some children as young as seven and as old as twelve are in this stage.
4. Intimate and mutual sharing, typically between the ages of eight and fifteen, a friend is someone who you can tell them things you would tell no one else. Children and teens in this stage no longer “keep score” and do things for a friend because they genuinely care for the person. If a friendship dissolves at this stage, it is usually due to a violation of trust. However, children in this stage do expect their friend to share similar interests and viewpoints and may take it as a betrayal if a friend likes someone that they do not.
5. Autonomous interdependence, a friend is someone who accepts you and that you accept as they are. In this stage children, teens, and adults accept and even appreciate differences between themselves and their friends. They are also not as possessive, so they are less likely to feel threatened if their friends have other relationships or interests. Children are typically twelve or older in this stage.

Peer Groups

In addition to their friendships, children also interact with other children their own age, referred to as peers. Peers include children encountered at school, in the neighborhood, or through family associations. Not all peers are friends. Some are acquaintances, and others are non-affiliated, but still part of the social context. Collections of peers that hang out or repeatedly engage in joint activities are referred to as peer groups, or cliques.

Because children and adolescents interact with the members of their peer groups repeatedly over time, these groups can have a big impact on their development (Giletta et al., 2021). For example, peer groups can influence student motivation at school (Kindermann, 2016). A prototypical study showed that adolescents who hang out with peers who are highly engaged in their schoolwork become more engaged themselves over time, whereas adolescents whose peers are more disaffected also show increases in their own disaffection over the same time period (Kindermann, 2007).

Sociometrics, Peer Acceptance, and Popularity

Most children want to be liked and accepted by their friends. Sociometric assessment measures social status and acceptance among members of a group, such as a classroom of students. In sociometric research children are asked to mention the three children they like to play with the most, and those they do not like to play with. The number of times a child is nominated for each of the two categories (like, do not like) is tabulated.

The average child has a few positive votes with very few negative ones. Popular children receive many votes in the “like” category, and very few in the “do not like” category. In contrast, rejected children receive more unfavorable votes, and few favorable ones. Controversial children are mentioned frequently in both categories, with multiple children liking them and others placing them in the "do not like" category. Neglected children are rarely mentioned in either category (Asher & Hymel, 1981).

There are also subdivisions within these categories. Some popular children are kind and have good social skills. These popular-prosocial children tend to do well in school and are cooperative and friendly. Popular-antisocial children may gain popularity by acting tough or spreading rumors about others (Cillessen & Mayeux, 2004).

Rejected children are sometimes excluded because they are withdrawn. Rejected-withdrawn children are shy and withdrawn and are easy targets for bullies because they are unlikely to retaliate when belittled (Boulton, 1999). Other rejected children are rejected-aggressive and are ostracized because they are aggressive, loud, and confrontational. Aggressive-rejected children may be acting out of a feeling of insecurity. Unfortunately, their fear of rejection only leads to behavior that brings further rejection from other children.

Long-Term Consequences of Peer Acceptance. Peer acceptance during childhood is a significant predictor of multiple long-term developmental outcomes. For example, peer acceptance predicts academic achievement (Wentzel et al., 20221) and educational attainment into early adulthood (Lorijn et al., 2022). Prinstein and colleagues (e.g., Prinstein & Giletta, 2021) have found that, in general, adults who were accepted in childhood have stronger marriages and work relationships, earn more money, and have better health outcomes than those who were unpopular.

Researchers have pointed out three processes that may underlie some of these predictive associations. First, peer acceptance may be a marker of social skills, emotional competence, and likability, and these attributes can have positive effects throughout the lifespan. Second, being accepted by peers is itself a satisfying and enjoyable experience, and one that can have long-term effects on identity, self-esteem, sense of belonging, confidence, and wellbeing. Third, peer acceptance is a gateway to higher quality relationships with well functioning friends, peer groups, and classmates, all of whom help socialize children and adolescents and contribute to their positive development in many domains.

Long-Term Consequences of Lack of Peer Acceptance. Children who are not accepted by their peers are more likely to experience conflict, lack confidence, and have trouble adjusting (Klima & Repetti, 2008; Schwartz, Lansford, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 2014). In fact, being rejected, neglected, or unpopular during childhood can potentially have long-term consequences. It is a risk factor for later anxiety, depression, substance use, obesity, and other physical and mental health issues. As you can imagine, there are also many processes that underlie these associations. Problems with peers may signal temperamental, regulatory, or social difficulties, which can persist over time and cause problems in other areas of development.

Moreover, lack of peer acceptance is a painful and stressful experience in itself, which can hurt self-esteem, confidence, and overall wellbeing. Another pathways of the long-term effects of unpopularity may be biological. Social rejection can cause not only psychological distress, but also trigger stress reactivity systems, like neurophysiological dysregulation, for example, and activate genes that lead to an inflammatory response. But perhaps the most important consequence is that children who do not connect with peerare denied opportunities to develop further, that is, to build their social skills and negotiate complex interpersonal interactions, thus contributing to continued difficulty in getting along with others.

Promoting Positive Peer Relationships during Childhood and Adolescence

Because of their importance to development, many intervention programs and in-school socioemotional learning curricula have been designed for children and youth to improve social skills and promote positive peer relationships. These include universal prevention programs for all students, selective interventions for typically developing children who are lagging behind in peer relationships, and indicated interventions for children with clinical diagnoses (Octopi et al., 2024; Pollak et al., 2023).

These programs and curricula are often implemented during preschool, Kindergarten, and early elementary school so that by the time peer relationships become central (at about third grade), children are well-prepared to interact constructively with age mates. That way children do not have to experience rejection or miss out on the experience of friendships with their developmental benefits. It is important to note, however, that social skills and competencies are malleable and can be developed at any age, including adulthood and old age.

Parents and teachers should respect and prioritize children's and adolescents' relationships with peers. Parents can model prosocial behavior and social skills, and help children build caring and reciprocal relationships with other family members, including age-mates, like siblings and cousins. They can provide opportunities for interactions with peers, in local parks and community centers, by inviting neighborhood children over, or arranging playdates. Group activities are more challenging, so parents whose children need a boost in their social skills may consider organizing one-on-one activities, especially with children who are somewhat younger than theirs, so they are similar developmentally.

Teachers can also facilitate peer relationships in their classrooms by fostering a positive and caring (cooperative and not competitive) peer climate, modeling and encouraging prosocial behavior, assigning group work and tasks that include a "getting to know you" component (e.g., show and tell, writing stories or drawing pictures of favorite hobbies), building social interaction into learning activities (e.g., reading to each other), and thinking carefully about seat assignments and disciplinary practices. In educational researchers sometimes refer to these activities as "the invisible hand of the teacher" (Farmer et al., 2011).

Schools can also take advantage of socioemotional learning (SEL) and mindfulness programs which focus on social relationships, compassion, emotions, and emotional regulation, because these programs have also been shown to support the development of higher quality peer relationships (Dai et al., 2022; Demirci et al., 2022; Moreira et al., 2025). Even pedagogical and disciplinary practices can be used as levers to facilitate peer connections. For example, Low and Van Resin (2024), using a cluster-randomized trial, found that student-centered instruction (specifically technology-supported cooperative learning) had a positive effects not only on students' social–emotional skills, but also their peer relations. In sum, the adults in children's lives can support them by fostering and encouraging the development of high quality peer relationships.

Supplemental Materials

• This video gives a brief history and significance of jump rope, particularly for Black girls in the U.S.

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OER Attributions:

"Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective, Second Edition" by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under a CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0

Lifespan Development by Lumen Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Child Growth and Development by College of the Canyons, Jennifer Paris, Antoinette Ricardo, and Dawn Rymond and is used under a CC BY 4.0 international license

Plays the Thing, Cambridge University is licensed under a CC BY 4.0

Additional written material by Dan Grimes & Brandy Brennan, Portland State University, and is licensed CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0

Video Attributions:

How the jump rope got its rhythm by TED is licensed CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0