At around 8, children develop the ability to consider the intent behind an action or choice, along with the ability to take another’s perspective.
On the flip side of the close bonds and friendships that form among this age group comes the increase in social cruelty and bullying. You'll also get 10% off your first order at the Scholastic Store Online. Children this age frequently travel in groups, and interactions are often defined by elaborate fantasy play, interactive games, rotating leaders, and cooperative goal-setting where participants work collaboratively toward a shared outcome.įor more quick tips and book recommendations, sign up for our Scholastic Parents newsletter! It is through these social routines and rituals that children learn to enter the play, establish group membership, and then direct the interactions. For example, your child may describe elaborate recess games, where they can travel through time, see into the future, or tame magical creatures. Until partway through middle school, they are learning how to relate to peers, adjust to social rules, and evolve from free play to more elaborately structured interactions and expectations. Eight- to ten-year-old children are still in what researcher Erik Erikson calls the age of Industry vs Inferiority.
