Abstract
How children acquire the capacity to interact competently with others and how they develop forms of less competent social behavior are critical questions in the study of child development. Because social relationships are of such central importance in everyday life, there may well be no skills more important than those required to sustain relationships. Thus, the achievement of social competence can be considered one end point of successful development. Aside from its intrinsic value, social competence may also be a marker of adaptive socio-emotional development. Children who lack social competence usually evidence a variety of other difficulties and are considered to be at risk for maladjustment later in life. For example, aggression and social withdrawal are two forms of problematic social behaviors in childhood that not only tend to persist but also tend to forecast poor personal and social adjustment in later years (e.g., Moskowitz, Schwartzman, & Ledingham, 1985; Parker & Asher, 1987; Rubin & Mills, 1988a).
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Rubin, K.H., Mills, R.S.L., Rose-Krasnor, L. (1989). Maternal Beliefs and Children’s Competence. In: Schneider, B.H., Attili, G., Nadel, J., Weissberg, R.P. (eds) Social Competence in Developmental Perspective. NATO ASI Series, vol 51. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2442-0_19
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