Preschool Peer Interactions and Gender Roles

While observing a preschool class in Staten Island, New York, I saw eight 4-year-old children participating in different activities with one certified preschool teacher. The group was evenly split between boys and girls. During the hour-long session, I witnessed dramatic play, peer interactions, relationships with adults, and self-regulation skills.

Dramatic Play

While observing, I witnessed a boy and a girl engaging in pretend play by imitating adult behaviors in a game of house. Hutchinson (2011) explains that children use playing house to explore reality and experiment with social roles.

The children I observed took on various roles as they pretended to have a family dinner, even incorporating baby dolls as their children. The girl cooked dinner while the boy waited at the table, then he handed her the dolls, assigning her the role of caring for them as the mother.

The girl took on the role of cooking for the boy, while he waited for her to finish. This dramatic play shows how children learn and follow traditional gender roles from an early age (Hutchinson, 2011).

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Despite not being segregated by gender, this play exemplifies how children often base their play on gender norms. Even though young children typically prefer playing with same-sex peers, in this instance, the girl and boy felt it was necessary to have both a female and male to accurately portray the roles in their game of house.

According to Kirkorian, Wartella, and Anderson (2008), the influence of mass media on preschool children's perception of gender roles is significant. They suggest that television has a vital role in shaping young viewers' understanding, with programs such as Modern Family possibly reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes by depicting women mainly in domestic positions.

During my observation, there was limited interaction with the teacher as children appeared more focused on playing with their peers. One instance of teacher-student interaction showed a disengagement dynamic when the teacher tried to engage two preschoolers playing house but was unsuccessful. The teacher asked about the babies' names, receiving only a brief response before one child left to join another group. This situation aligns with Garvey (1990) and Harper and McCluskey's (2003) suggestion that adult attention can disrupt children's peer interactions. In contrast, another observed teacher-student interaction had a more amicable tone.

The teacher interacted with a boy who was playing with trucks. He was playing by himself when she asked if she could join him. They played together in a friendly way with cars and trucks. It's common for teachers to spend more time with less social children compared to more social children (Harper and McCluskey, 2003). The boy in this scenario may be seen as less social because he played alone the entire time.

During my observation I did not witness any signs of attachment-seeking behavior from the children towards the adults. Nonetheless, I did have an opportunity to witness a preschool girl being dropped off by her mother before my observation. The girl's behavior was irritable and hostile. She cried and kicked as her mother signed her in. The mother attempted to calm the girl down, but she also appeared in need of comfort herself. Typically, separation from mothers can be a source of stress for children, but it can also be stressful for mothers to separate from their children (Balaban et al., 2002).

Peer Relationship

During my observation, I witnessed three girls engaging in dress-up play. Unlike the previous non-gender-segregated pair, this group was specifically girls. According to Hutchinson (2011), young children tend to be friends with peers of the same gender and age. While playing dress-up, these girls displayed kindness towards each other, doing each other's hair and makeup, and referring to one another as "my best friend".

When the fourth girl in the class finished playing house with the boy, she asked to join the three girls. However, they saw her request as a conflict and rejected her by saying "no way, you're not our friend." Young children often equate being a friend with being a playmate. According to Hutchinson (2011), young children define a friend as someone they play with. Therefore, when the fourth girl wanted to play with the three girls after playing with the boy, she was excluded because she was seen as the boy's friend rather than their own.

Self-Control

During my observation, I witnessed a display of aggression when a boy kicked over a building blocks "princess castle" being constructed by a girl. This resulted in a physical altercation where the girl pushed the boy, and in return, the boy pushed the girl back. The lack of self-regulation was evident as they engaged in the fight, displaying both instrumental aggression, fighting over toys, and physical aggression, using physical force against each other. Additionally, there was no demonstration of helpful or empathic prosocial behavior to prevent the negative impulses during this conflict.

In preschool aged children, aggression is common and tends to peak during early childhood years (Hutchinson, 2011). However, these aggressive behaviors typically decrease as children learn how to effectively communicate their needs (Hutchinson, 2011). During my preschool observation, I had the delight of observing eight joyful children engaging in play, disagreements, laughter, and joking with each other. This experience also provided me with the opportunity to apply classroom theories to real-life situations, making it both enjoyable and educational.

References
Balaban, N., Brodkin, A. M., David, J., Drucker, J., Feder-Feitel, L., & Greenberg, P. (2002). A Great Start To School. Scholastic Parent & Child, 10(1), 40-45.

Harper, Lawrence V & McCluskey, Karen S. (2003) explore teacher-child and child-child interactions in inclusive preschool settings in their study "Do adults inhibit peer interactions?" published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, volume 18, pages 163-184. The citation for this article is doi:10.1016/S0885-2006%2803%2900025-5. Hutchison, E. (2011) discusses early childhood development in the book "Dimensions of human behavior: The Changing Life Course" (4th ed.) published by SAGE in Los Angeles.

References:
Kirkorian, H., Wartella, E., & Anderson, D. (2008). Media And Young Children's Learning. The Future of Children, 18(1), 39-61.
Garvery, C. (1990). Play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.