Social interactions

What is typical?

The way children interact with others greatly depends on their age.

0-3 years

• Use nonverbal gestures including facial expressions, vocal sounds, and body movements to make contact such as reaching out or crying.
• Demonstrate the first signs of empathy and kindness with adults and other children.
• Explore and develop language skills for a range of social functions.
• Start to respond to the needs and feelings of others.
• Start to explore relationships and develop a sense of identity and agency.

3-5 years

• Demonstrate a greater interest in playing with others than by themselves.
• Begin to engage in structured play that involves rules negotiated with others.
• Form friendships with other children of a similar age.
• Develop competence and social skills by understanding the perspectives of others and the responsibilities and rights within groups.

6-8 years

• Continue to develop social skills to further build and maintain relationships with adults and other children.
• Become more empathetic and more aware of peer differences and personal responsibilities towards others.
• Start to value acceptance while developing an understanding that group interactions can involve challenges and conflicts.
• Transfer existing relationship dynamics to the education and care setting.

What are the common concerns?

Babies develop at all different rates. However, a child may show signs that they are experiencing difficulty interacting with others.

For example, many babies make eye contact and sounds early, but others may not start until they are around 3 months old. If your child has not started interacting at the same age as other children, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to be worried.

However, delays in communication skills can be signs of language delay, developmental delay, developmental disorders such as deafness and hearing loss, autism or intellectual disability.

As a toddler or adolescent, a child may become isolated or withdrawn or they may experience difficultly in participating in groups and interacting positively. If a child appears to be independent and does not seek help from adults, they may also need support in building positive relationships with others.

A child with autism might find it hard to read social cues, they might not play the way other children do and they might even seem uninterested in being social.

A child with social anxiety might worry about situations that involve interacting with others, such as classroom discussions.

A child with selective mutism won’t be able to speak in certain places, during certain social activities or with certain people due to anxiety.

What can I do?

As a parent or caregiver, it’s important to have meaningful interactions that are caring and responsive.

By helping a child understand and manage their own feelings and recognise these same feelings in others, this allows children to build friendships, express themselves and participate appropriately in social settings.

If attention is consistently given to a child, this builds and maintains connections over time and the child is more likely to feel a sense of security and belonging.

To manage a child’s behaviour, parents need to have positive interactions with their child that encourage good behaviour, instead of focusing on negative behaviour.

It helps to create physical environments and routines that allow children the time and resources they need to have positive interactions with their peers.

It is also important to be aware of a child’s individual abilities, needs, and challenges, as well as supporting them through times of change.

Who can I speak to?

If you are concerned about your child’s ability to interact with others you can speak with your general practitioner (GP), psychologist, paediatrician or Maternal and Child Health nurse.