Playgroups
If your child is still not part of a social group, we recommend starting a playgroup. Social development and, accordingly, socialization are important for a person to adapt to his environment, to feel good and to live a life in peace with himself and his environment. Studies show that our social development in childhood also forms the basis of our later social behaviors. For example, in a study conducted by Kochanska and Radke in 1992, it was observed that babies who showed introverted behavior towards their acquaintances during infancy continued the same behaviors when they reached the age of five.
Many things we have shared with you so far are actually important in laying the foundation for our children to start a healthy social life. In the development of social skills, besides a child’s temperament, the relationships and experiences he has with his environment, the reactions he receives from his environment, his psychomotor skills and cognitive development level play an important role. In other words, as in all other areas of development, developments in this area have a high interaction with other areas. Although the most basic need of your baby in his first year is to establish a relationship based on trust and love with you, the importance of entering into different relationships has increased even more as of his second year. These periods are a very good period for playgroups. It can be started with 1-2 children first, then moved to groups that grow a little more, and after the age of 2, if desired, it can be started to participate in pre-school education programs. Since the 0-6 age period is very important in terms of development and warnings, correctly selected preschool programs have incredible benefits for the development of children.
Although your child does not yet know how to share and cannot really socialize, the associations and games in this period will give them opportunities to observe, not be afraid of strangers, to overcome their shyness, to imitate and to demonstrate their social skills by experiencing different experiences. When our children are 10-12 months old, their observations increase and they can sometimes be significantly affected by the emotions experienced by other children. For example, if another baby is crying, your baby may burst into tears. Towards 13-14 months, you may witness another crying child being caressed and hugged. In the current process, that is towards 18 months, you can see that a child is trying to console another child who dropped his ball, even though they do not know how to empathize in the real sense. Therefore, even if your child is self-centered until the age of 3, they are very sensitive to those around them, especially children, even at this young age.