Parents are great - friends are better?

There are only so many social skills a child can learn from a parent. A kid will learn how to get along with adults, which has its uses -- but ultimately, a kid has to learn how to get along with his/ her peers. (How to share, what behavior to tolerate, what behavior not to tolerate, etc., etc., etc...)

By the way I don't think it's better than, in that I think both are necessary.

(Sorry, rushed, interesting topic tho!)

I know
I know

It's everything I learned and lived - but I'm watching more and more of the kids around me spending their young lives (under the age of 5) with adults, not kids - and this study has me squinting, wondering what types of difficulties these kids who just are NOT being kid-socialized are going to run into.

Parents running more and more interference in their kids' games and stuff ... I see it when I'm out dog-walking ... I ran into problems with a friend when I let her son play with other kids in a public area - without me sitting in the middle of the group (I observed from a distance of maybe 15 - 20' - far enough, I thought, to not inhibit their play, and close enough to prevent, you know, kidnapping). She was horrified. What if there was, like, a fight about a toy or something. I don't think he's been unattended since.

She'd freak if I told her about this study.

stronger than would have occurred to me - but logical when you consider it. Yes I agree Soz, both are vital. Interesting.

This is a frequent theme boomer and I hit, slacker parents unite and all that. The over-involvement of parents in their kids' lives.

I think there are all kinds of repercussions of not just *playing* with other kids of the same age or similar, without the hovering adult. Self-esteem stuff (I can't do this myself, I need help), boundary stuff (that kid did something that my mom would never do or allow done to me! scream bloody murder! [or, conversely] that kid did something that I think was awful and I want to react but nobody else seems to be reacting so maybe I'm wrong), all kindsa stuff.

Craven talked about being homeschooled and then getting in fistfights over standard "yo mama" stuff when he did enter a school.

How old is your friend's kid?

He was 2 and 3 then. He's older, and notably oddly-socialized now. No school friends. No friends in the neighbourhood. He has acquaintances of roughly his age, who are his mother's friends' children - they are clearly not his friends - spend time with him because they have to. I feel badly for him. It seems like he's going to end up being one of those kids who take their mom to the prom.

Well, yeah, there ya go. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

hmmmm ...
as ehbeth knows, until i entered school at age 7, i hardly had any children to play with. my brother was 7 years older than i and had his own friends .
now, i didn.t just grow up/rely on my parents, but grew up amongst an adult workforce : the longshoremen in hamburg.
before entering school i would have breakfast with my parents around 8 o'clock and often wander off to "socialize" with the longshoremen . i'd join them in their breakfast-shed for their 10 o'clock break - usually being offered some of the choicest bits of sandwich and a drink from their canteens . sometimes i'd wander over to the engine room where a huge steam-engine was puffing away and i'd hold lengthy "discussions" with the engineer (years later he told me that i was able to come up with new questions endlessly - i'm not sure he always enjoyed it).
so i really grew up in an adult world.
when i started school, it didn't take me long to make friends and some become life-long friends.
when i look back, i realize that i had a great deal of freedom when growing up. my mother didn't seem to be worried about my safety - as long as i showed up for lunch and dinner.
i guess she knew that the longshoremen would all look out for me, and if she wanted me to come home, she just had to tell one of the men and i would be told : "your mother wants you !" , and i'd quickly trot off.
perhaps ehbeth is better able to tell how it has shaped my later life than i. hbg

I've been thinking about this one.

While I agree with the conclusions of the article in a general way, I'm not sure if their methodology really holds up. I always thought there was a lot of nature in the nature/ nurture equation, and that belief has been redoubled since the sozlet was born -- she's been so HERSELF forever. Character traits surfaced early (even pre-birth) and have stuck around.

I think that people are born with a whole bunch of predispositions that can be encouraged or squooshed depending on circumstances.

So in terms of the link between kids having good friends and getting along with siblings better -- maybe those kids are just more social. That whatever combination of nature and nurture has gifted them in the social interaction category, whether they're interacting with siblings or friends.

I do agree with the main idea here, though, that it's important to for kids to have plenty of interactions with kids approximately their own age and on their own terms, without a hovering adult.

I think that the hovering part might be even more important, socially, in terms of hamburger's experience -- knowing that his mother trusted him to handle his freedom well, and the benefits he got from that freedom.