This reflective essay explores early childhood social development through a parent's firsthand observations of twin preschool-age daughters. Drawing on personal experience alongside scholarly sources, the paper examines infant social exchanges and reciprocal matching, the non-verbal communication patterns observed in twins, the social dynamics of daycare settings, and the influence of maternal presence on mother-child bonding. The paper also discusses practical strategies for managing bedtime and household routines through game-based engagement, illustrating how friendly competition motivates young children. Together, these observations affirm that four-year-olds are naturally eager to communicate, connect, and please the people around them.
Children are a wonderful source of entertainment — they truly are! We learn from infancy how to interact socially with one another. When my children were just newborns, they could delight people for hours with their smiles and giggles. Many parents, I have noticed, place mirrors in cribs so that babies can make faces and interact with their own reflections.
Being twins, my girls would often stare at each other for hours, making faces and laughing together. We were very fortunate in that, even though they were premature by a month, both girls were normal weight and came home together within a week of birth. They were therefore able to share a crib — and later a bed — during their prime developmental stage.
In her article "The Development of Social Competence in Children," Sherri Oden states that infants take part in "social exchanges" through a "reciprocal matching process" — one in which an infant tries to "match or copy each other by approximation of each other's gaze, use of tongue, sounds, and smiles."[1] Our girls did this constantly, and in many ways they still do.
It is easy — for me, anyway — to interpret this behavior as a special bond. We have even started calling it that "twin thing." It is almost as though they share the same thoughts, or at least can communicate those thoughts with each other in a non-verbal way.
Watching my girls at daycare is enlightening. They — along with all the other preschoolers — are still at the stage where everyone is their best friend. Sometimes it takes a half hour to pick them up in the afternoon because they all have to hug each other goodbye. Oden similarly notes that children at this age do not differentiate between a best friend and an acquaintance or even a stranger. However, I have observed that at church, they do have their favorite people whom they tend to seek out.
When we get home, the girls have a little free time while I prepare dinner. Often they will play out what happened at school that day. Sometimes they become so absorbed in their imaginative play that they call me by their teacher's name.
Daycare always makes mothers feel guilty to some degree. When the girls were first born, I took a third-shift job waiting tables so that they would not have to be in daycare. Once they were awake during the day, I had my mother watch them. Now that they are older, they love the time with all their new friends.
"APA research on daycare and maternal closeness"
"Using competition and play to manage routines"
In essence, at four years old, children seem eager to please and happy to communicate — with everyone. The behaviors observed across infancy, daycare, home routines, and quiet evening moments all point to the same truth: young children are naturally and enthusiastically social, and the environments we create for them shape how that sociability grows.
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