How do you help your children develop a growing sense of independence and autonomy by the age of seven? How do you deal with the increasing independence of your adolescent? The process begins as your toddler learns about play and social activities. However, your child is not able to play unless he knows how to play. He learns the idea of taking turns from people who allow him his turn and insist on their turn. He learns to be appropriately assertive without being excessively self-centered and aggressive from you and other adults who deal with his temper tantrums. He learns not to be too passive or compliant when you and other adults encourage him to stick up for himself, to speak up when it is his turn or when his rights are infringed upon.

Social development begins when you relate to your children as friends and playmates. Yes, you are a parent first; but part of the time (especially with your small children) you are friends and playmates. Within this playmate relationship, your child learns how to ask someone to play with her. She develops a feel for situations in which people do not want to play with her. She learns to accept an invitation to play. Occasionally, you may ask your toddler or preschooler if she wants to play a video game, accepting your child's judgment about whether or not to play. Similarly, your child learns to ask you to play, accepting your judgment whether or not to play. Peek-a-boo played with your infant becomes hide-and-seek when she is a toddler or grade schooler. Working puzzles with your preschooler becomes assembling models or playing X-Box with your grade schooler or adolescent. Helping your preschooler fix her bicycle becomes helping your adolescent fix her car. Playing Fish with your preschooler becomes playing Scrabble with your adolescent. Making mud pies with a preschooler becomes helping prepare supper with your teenager. Friend and playmate relationships begin quite young and continue throughout your lives. Establish the playmate relationship with your child while remaining a good parent, and the fun and good times can go on for a long time. …

Helping your children select their friends and playmates begins when they are young. It is best for your children to play with other children of approximately the same age, and is not a good idea for them to spend most of their time with children significantly older or younger. Your child who spends a lot of time playing with older children gets into situations for which he is not prepared, emotionally or socially. Similarly, children who spend most of their time playing with children significantly younger than they are tend to relate like younger children. Thus, encourage your children to play with children about their own age and discourage their spending a lot of time playing with children much older or much younger.

Next, encourage your children to become selective about who they play with in their own age group and help them develop criteria for deciding who, when, what, where, and how in respect to play and other activities.

With whom to play? As a general rule, your children should be encouraged to play with any child their age who holds similar values; they should be discouraged from playing with children who do not accept basic parental values of good and bad, for example, children who steal, lie, damage property, or fail to respect the rights of other children and adults. Your children should also be discouraged from playing with children who believe it is alright to get bad grades in school, to be disrespectful to teachers, to skip school, to get into things or go places where they should not. Finally, your children should be discouraged from playing with children who habitually fight, do not play in a cooperative way, do not take turns or who hold beliefs about other people which are negative and prejudiced. Your children should be encouraged to pick their friends and associat...