As I mentioned earlier, the teacher relationship matters in many ways. Some families nurture children's social skills before they begin kindergarten. They invite friends over and arrange for children to join in group play with other children. They talk to their child about what it means to be a host and how to look out for the other child's needs, which helps children learn empathy and prosocial behavior. We noticed that some parents would intervene when problems arose in play groups and would talk to their child about fairness, turn taking, sharing, resolving dilemmas through compromise and discussion.
Parents also help their children when they provide experiences with negotiation and turn taking.
The group size in most preschools and child care programs is small relative to many kindergarten classes. Patience, negotiation, turn taking, and compromise skills learned in families transfer to the classroom setting and help children develop friends and close relationships with teachers. The Pathways Project is in its seventh year. Some of the children in your study are now entering fifth and sixth grades. The path that looks most stable or fixed has to do with the degree to which children are prone towards the use of aggressive or disruptive behavior in the classroom.