The human being is formed throughout his life and develops certain aspects that make him unique. One of the most important aspects for human development is the way you learn to relate from birth. During the early months, interpersonal relationships play a fundamental role in the development and psychological well-being of human beings (Amar, 2004).
Peer relationships are essential for favourable social interaction. These relationships are developed with the main caregivers, the family and the environment, and later, with the companions and teachers in the school, all promote social adjustment. As a result of this interaction, children experience an increase in social behavior and are immersed in an environment of social organization with dominant and cohesive networks in which they strive to reach an agreement (Federación de Enseñanza de CC. OO. de Andalucía, 2010).
The age at which boys and girls come into contact with other children in their lives outside the home (for example, when they are at school) is getting younger. Vigotsky’s approaches (cited by Campo, Estrada, Ochoa, Pérez & Rodríguez, 2011), maintain that children’s intellectual and cognitive growth is stimulated by different aspects related to the environment in which they develop, as well as by the people with whom they spend most of their time. Therefore, the parents are not the only social media with which the child interacts, but the school context and their peers.
As Ternera (2014) says; “Through the relationships that the boy and the girl experience with the objects in their environment and the interactions with the people around them, they progress in the knowledge and appreciation of themselves and, consequently, in the formation of self-concept and self-image, which play such an important role in child development”. The nature and quality of peer relationships also favour overcoming egocentricity and the feeling of belonging to a group. Therefore, healthy peer relationships are essential for social, emotional and intellectual development.
From the first months of life, children show interest in their peers, actively seek attention and initiate communication through behaviours such as touching, vocalizing, looking, and smiling. Later, the interactions of young children progress from the moment they focus on objects, they react to the behaviours of their peers trying to regulate them with action-reaction episodes, to reach true social exchanges at 18 months of age. Those who seek to influence their peers, take turns and adopt complementary roles in games.
From the age of 2, children begin to feel attracted to their peers who are most similar to them in age, sex, race and behaviour (Hartup, 1992). They also choose as friends children who have prosocial behaviours (they help, share, cooperate), while they reject those who show unpleasant behaviours (take away toys, fight or quarrel). At these ages, different levels of acceptance or isolation within the group begin to emerge, although it will be later that it becomes more stable and filled with content (García Pérez, 2014).
Each child is at the center of a more or less broad social network to the extent that himself creates (or is helped to create) relationships with his peers and to the extent that he is sought out by others. The interpersonal relationships that are created in this way define their personal role within the group. (Cagliari, Castagnetti & Giudici, 2017). In subsequent years, the role of peers as socialization agents is consolidated.
To encourage the establishment of relationships between equals, the teacher must be attentive, since they can perceive the development of bonds and relationships that go from simple knowledge to friendship, passing through different stages of affinity. These relationships are not born only of selective affinities and can transform into rivalry and hostility. The very absence of relationships has its importance and meaning: the isolated child, ignored or rejected by others represents a case that needs to be seriously addressed (Cagliari, Castagnetti & Giudici, 2017). These moments constitute privileged occasions for observation, early detection of possible behavioral inhibitions and, thus, establish interventions and moments that attenuate possible socialization problems and / or subsequent disorders (Méndez, Espada & Orgilés, 2006).
We must bear in mind that adult-child relationships are essentially complementary, while child-child relationships are based on reciprocity. In addition, children who have had difficulty relating to their peers are more likely to have adjustment problems (Coie & Dodge, 1988).
In contrast, those children who have positive relationships with their peers “have experienced higher levels of emotional well-being, have a secure conviction of themselves, value forms of prosocial behaviour, and their social interactions are stronger and more adaptive (Wentzel, Baker & Rusell, 2009, cited by Lancuza, 2010).
All the arguments exposed above suggest that the school must facilitate and take care of the spaces, materials and times where the kids have opportunities for interaction among equals. For Reggio Emilia, the environments are considered as the “third teacher” (Strong-Wilson & Ellis, 2007). Thus, spaces should be considered as places where relationships are permanently built and rebuilt and where opportunities for experimentation, encounter, communication and action are configured. It is from this consideration that we must ask ourselves as teachers: how can we improve relations between equals in Nursery School? The answer to this question brings an opportunity to modify the educational relationships and processes that take place in it.
As Loris Malaguzzi says about the different ways of expression of the little ones: “The child has a hundred languages, (and in addition one hundred one hundred one hundred), but they take off from them ninety-nine (…) And they say that one hundred does not exist. The child says: “on the other hand, the hundred exists” (Appendix 1).
Authorship
Estefanía Damalia Diéguez, Alicia Gándara Quiles y Almudena Moja Larrinaga, 2020.
Appendix 1
Poem by Loris Malaguzzi about the different ways of expression of the little ones:
«The hundred languages of children»
The boy
it is made of a hundred.
The boy has a hundred languages
a hundred hands,
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking to play and to talk
one hundred always one hundred ways of listening
to be surprised, to love one hundred joys
to sing and understand
a hundred worlds to discover
a hundred worlds to invent
a hundred worlds to dream of.
The child has a hundred languages
(and in addition to a hundred hundred hundred)
but they steal ninety-nine.
School and culture
the head is separated from the body.
They say:
to think without hands to act headless
to listen and not speak to understand without joy to love
and be surprised only at Easter and at Christmas.
They say:
to discover the world that already exists
and out of a hundred they steal ninety- nine.
They say:
to discover the world that already exists
and out of a hundred they steal ninety- nine.
They say:
that play and work reality and fantasy science
and imagination the sky and the earth reason and dream
they are things that do not go together And they say
that one hundred does not exist.
The child says: "on the other hand the hundred exists."
Loris Malaguzzi.
References
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