Children's Friendship Development: A Comparative Study (Report‪)‬

Introduction Please help us keep ECRP free to readers around the world by making a financial contribution to the journal. Every little bit helps!Establishing friendships is an important developmental goal of early childhood (Buysse, Goldman, & Skinner, 2002). Friendships established during the preschool years create valuable contexts to learn and practice skills essential to children's social, cognitive, communicative, and emotional development (Guralnick, Neville, Hammond, & Connor, 2007). Friendships also benefit children by creating a sense of belonging and security and by lessening stress (Geisthardt, Brotherson, & Cook, 2002; Overton & Rausch, 2002). In addition, successful friendships in early childhood contribute to children's quality of life and are considered important to life adjustment (Overton & Rausch, 2002; Richardson, & Schwartz, 1998).