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Three's a Crowd
When Two Play, One May Stray
By Sharon Waldrop
"I keep a close eye on the boys to make sure they aren't doing anything that may hurt my daughter if she is tagging along," she says.
Should observant parents let children work out their own problems with pairing?
"When left alone, children lack the maturity to recognize pairing and will naturally exclude others," says Dunning. "One way a parent can encourage their child not to exclude others is to find activities that involve all children equally. A few examples can be jump rope, a board game and arts and crafts. The ultimate goal is for children to include others without adult supervision."
Dunning says that pairing is not a stage of development but rather a natural human instinct.
"Encouraging your child to include others at an early age will teach them how to share, communicate and work together as a team, which are all necessary tools to develop positive relationships," she says.
Shellie Hurrie of Beaverton, Ore. is a mother who has successfully come to the rescue of an excluded child.
"I sometimes take the 'leftover' child off with me to do something fun. Inevitably, the other two would wander over to see what we were doing. Then, I'd get those two involved and ease myself out of the picture when I could," she says.