Social Skills by Age: What to Expect and What the Research Says

Social skills develop progressively
across childhood and adolescence —
with each stage building on the foundations
of the previous one. Understanding
what social skills are typical at
each age — what children can reasonably
be expected to do socially at different
developmental stages — is practically
important for every parent who wants
to support their child’s social development
and set appropriate expectations.

This article covers what the research
shows about social skills by age —
what to expect at each developmental
stage, what supports skill development,
and what parents can specifically do.

What Social Skills Are

Research on social competence —
including significant work by Kenneth
Dodge at Duke University — defines
social skills as the specific behavioral
capacities that enable effective social
interaction:

Communication skills — the
ability to communicate clearly,
listen actively, and respond
appropriately in social contexts.

Cooperation skills — the ability
to work toward shared goals
with others — sharing, taking
turns, compromising.

Conflict resolution skills —
the ability to navigate disagreements
constructively — without aggression
or complete withdrawal.

Empathy skills — the ability
to recognize and respond to
others’ emotional experiences.

Friendship skills — the ability
to initiate, maintain, and
repair peer relationships.

Self-regulation skills — the
ability to manage one’s own
emotional and behavioral responses
in social contexts.

Research finding: social skills
are not innate — they develop
through maturation, experience,
and explicit teaching — and
they develop at different rates
for different children.

Social Skills in Infants
(Birth to Twelve Months)

Research on infant social skills identifies:

What to expect:
Responding to faces and voices — from birth.
Social smiling — from approximately six weeks.
Back-and-forth cooing and
vocal exchanges — from approximately two months.
Responding to emotional expressions —
from approximately three months.
Showing preferences for familiar people — from approximately six months.
Using social referencing —
looking to caregivers for social
information — from approximately nine months.
Joint attention — following
gaze and pointing — from approximately nine to twelve months.

What this means practically:
Infants are developing the
most foundational social skills —
social attention, social reciprocity,
and emotional responsiveness —
that all subsequent social skills build on.

Social Skills in Toddlers
(One to Three Years)

Research on toddler social skills identifies:

What to expect:
Parallel play — playing alongside peers.
Beginning cooperative play —
from approximately two years.
Simple sharing — with significant adult support.
Simple turn-taking — with significant adult support.
Empathic responses to others’
distress — attempting to comfort.
Using words to express emotions — from approximately eighteen months.
Beginning pretend play — from approximately eighteen months.
Imitation of peers and adults.

What this means practically:
Toddlers are developing the
beginning of the cooperative,
empathic, and communicative
skills that peer relationships require —
but these skills are just emerging
and require significant adult support.

Realistic expectations for toddlers:
Sharing is genuinely very
difficult — do not expect consistent sharing.
Cooperative play is just beginning —
parallel play is completely appropriate.
Emotional regulation is very
limited — tantrums are normal.
Conflict is frequent and normal —
adult guidance is needed.

Social Skills in Preschoolers
(Three to Five Years)

Research on preschool social skills identifies:

What to expect:
Cooperative play — working
toward shared goals with peers.
Shared pretend play — sustained
shared fantasy scenarios.
Sharing — with adult support
and reminders — improving through this period.
Turn-taking — with adult support — improving.
Joining play — able to approach
and join peer play groups.
Negotiating roles in pretend play.
Beginning conflict resolution —
with adult support.
Expressing emotions verbally — more consistently.
Understanding others’ emotions —
through developing theory of mind.
Beginning friendships — specific preferred peers.

What this means practically:
Preschoolers are developing
genuine social skills — but
they still need significant
adult support and guidance.
Conflicts are frequent and normal —
adult guidance through conflict
rather than prevention produces the best outcomes.

Realistic expectations for preschoolers:
Sharing and turn-taking are
developing — but still require
adult support and reminders.
Conflicts are frequent —
this is normal and important.
Friendships are forming —
but are more fluid than later friendships.
Emotional outbursts are still common —
regulation is still developing.

Social Skills in Early School
Age (Six to Eight Years)

Research on early school age social skills identifies:

What to expect:
Genuine reciprocal friendships —
specific, preferred, mutual relationships.
More sophisticated cooperation —
in group activities, team games, classroom work.
More effective conflict resolution —
with less adult support needed.
More consistent sharing and turn-taking.
Better emotional regulation
in social contexts — though still developing.
Reading social cues more accurately —
understanding when peers are
interested, bored, upset, or annoyed.
Understanding social rules
and norms more sophisticatedly.
Beginning to navigate peer group dynamics.

What this means practically:
Early school age children are
developing genuine social competence —
with more sophisticated skills
than preschoolers — but still
requiring adult support and
guidance in more complex social situations.

Realistic expectations:
Some conflict and social difficulty
is still completely normal.
Friendships may still be somewhat
fluid — particularly in the early school years.
Peer rejection and exclusion
are common experiences — not
necessarily signs of social difficulty.

Social Skills in Later Childhood
(Nine to Twelve Years)

Research on later childhood social skills identifies:

What to expect:
More stable and more intimate friendships.
More sophisticated cooperation
and teamwork.
Better conflict resolution —
with less adult support.
Better emotional regulation in social contexts.
More sophisticated reading
of social cues — including
subtle social signals.
Beginning to navigate more
complex social hierarchies —
peer groups, popularity, social status.
More sophisticated perspective-taking —
understanding complex social situations.
Beginning of romantic interest —
particularly toward the end of this period.

What this means practically:
Later childhood children are
developing sophisticated social
skills — but peer relationships
are also becoming more complex —
with social hierarchies, cliques,
and social comparison becoming more prominent.

Realistic expectations:
Peer conflict and social difficulty
remain common — but should
be less frequent and more effectively
resolved than in earlier childhood.
Bullying and social exclusion
are significant risks at this age — warranting specific attention.

Social Skills in Adolescence
(Thirteen Plus)

Research on adolescent social skills identifies:

What to expect:
Genuine close friendships —
with mutual trust, self-disclosure, and support.
More sophisticated conflict
resolution — though emotional
intensity can make this more challenging.
Romantic relationship skills beginning.
More sophisticated reading
of complex social situations.
Navigation of complex peer
group dynamics — including
social hierarchies and peer pressure.
Developing leadership and
collaborative skills.
More sophisticated empathy —
including for people in very different circumstances.

What this means practically:
Adolescents are developing
adult-level social sophistication —
but in the context of intense
peer relationships and the
emotional volatility of adolescence —
making social challenges significant.

Realistic expectations:
Social conflict and difficulty
remain common — in the context
of more intense peer relationships.
Social media adds significant
complexity to adolescent social life — warranting specific attention.

What Supports Social Skill Development
Across All Ages

Research on social skill development
identifies several factors that support
development across all ages:

Genuine peer social experience —
particularly unstructured. Research
consistently finds that genuine
peer social experience — with
its natural social challenges —
is the primary context for
social skill development at every age.

Emotion coaching. Research
by Gottman finds that emotion
coaching — acknowledging and
validating children’s emotions —
builds the emotional intelligence
that social competence requires — at every age.

Explicit social skills teaching —
in context. Research finds
that explicit social skills
teaching — in the context of
real social situations — produces
more effective skill development
than abstract instruction.

Warm authoritative parenting.
Research finds that warm authoritative
parenting — combining warmth
with structure and autonomy
support — supports social skill
development across all ages.

Parental modeling. Research
finds that children learn social
skills significantly through
observing their parents’ actual
social behavior.

Try This This Week

Practice 1 — The Age-Appropriate Expectations Check
What it is: A deliberate check
of whether your expectations
of your child’s social skills
are appropriate for their developmental stage.

How to do it: This week review
the social skills typical for
your child’s current age — and honestly ask:

Am I expecting social skills
that are ahead of my child’s developmental stage?
Am I frustrated by behavior
that is actually developmentally normal?
Are my expectations causing
unnecessary conflict?

Adjust expectations where needed —
and notice the relief this brings.

Why it works: Research on
parenting and child development
consistently finds that developmentally
appropriate expectations — matched
to the child’s actual stage —
produce significantly less conflict
and significantly more effective
parenting than expectations
that are ahead of development.

Practice 2 — The Social Skill Teaching Practice
What it is: A deliberate teaching
of one specific social skill
most relevant to your child’s
current developmental stage and current challenges.

How to do it: This week identify
one social skill your child
is currently developing — and teach it specifically:

Name the skill clearly.
Model it — show how it looks.
Practice together in a calm moment — role-play.
Prompt its use in real situations — gently.
Celebrate when it is used.

Why it works: Research on
social skills training consistently
finds that explicit skill teaching —
naming, modeling, practicing,
and prompting — produces significantly
more rapid skill development
than expecting skills to emerge naturally without guidance.

Practice 3 — The Peer Experience Investment
What it is: A deliberate weekly
investment in genuine peer social
experience — the most important
context for social skill development at every age.

How to do it: Once each week —
facilitate one genuine peer
social experience appropriate
to your child’s age:

Toddler or preschooler —
an unstructured playdate.
School age — a friendship activity.
Adolescent — a supported in-person social experience.

Why it works: Research consistently
finds that genuine peer social
experience — with its natural
social challenges and social
learning opportunities — is
the primary context for social
skill development at every age.
No adult instruction replicates
the genuine social practice
that peer interaction provides.

The Bottom Line

Social skills develop progressively
across childhood and adolescence —
with each stage building on
the previous one. Research
is clear: age-appropriate expectations
reduce conflict and increase
parenting effectiveness; genuine
peer social experience is the
primary development context
at every age; explicit social
skills teaching accelerates
development; emotion coaching
builds the emotional intelligence
that social competence requires;
and parental modeling is one
of the most powerful social
skill development tools available.

Sources

Dodge, K. A. (1986).
A social information processing
model of social competence in children.
Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology, 18, 77–125.

Hartup, W. W. (1996).
The company they keep.
Child Development, 67(1), 1–13.

Gottman, J. M., & DeClaire, J.
(1997). Raising an Emotionally
Intelligent Child. Simon & Schuster.

Thompson, R. A. (2006).
The development of the person.
In W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Eds.),
Handbook of Child Psychology. Wiley.