February 16, 2001

How Children Handle Conflict: Better Than We Think

By Marina Cords and Melanie Killen

We often think of young children as having very limited social skills, especially when it comes to dealing with conflicts, and adults typically intervene quickly when children quarrel over a toy or argue about how to play a game. However, recent research on social behavior in children and nonhuman primates suggests that we may be underestimating children's abilities to get along with each other. We may even be misinterpreting human nature.

In the first half of the 20th century, Sigmund

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