Parental involvement and children’s peer interactions

Abstract

Children require parental support to successfully develop social and academic skills during early years. We examined the link between parental involvement and preschool children’s peer interactions. We recruited 442 children (52.8% girls), their parents and teachers for the current study. The children’s age ranged between 40 and 86 months (M = 60.28, SD = 9.72). Parents and teachers reported on children’s positive and negative peer interactions using the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale. Parents reported on their involvement using the Family Involvement Questionnaire. Results from the structural equation models revealed that parental involvement was positively related to positive peer interactions but not with negative peer interactions. Future work and limitations are discussed.