Cooperating

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Cooperating is another skill useful for living in a society. In order to cooperate, children must sometimes give up or share something and become less egocentric—less concerned about themselves and more concerned about the welfare of the group. Adults understand that cooperation is a necessity for the welfare of any society. Children, especially young children, need guidance and support in learning to cooperate; they must learn to balance the task of developing a strong sense of self with that of learning to become a member of a group.

Cooperative behaviors, like sharing behaviors, develop as children mature. The more social experiences children have had, the better their ability to cooperate. The same kinds of factors that influence sharing behaviors also influence children’s ability to cooperate.

Reinforcement

Reinforcing cooperative behavior seems to work. Weingold and Webster (1964) asked two groups of children to work on a mural project. In one group, each child was rewarded for the group product. In the other group, children were told that only the child doing the best job would receive a reward. In the first group, the researchers saw an increase in friendly, cooperative behavior and peer interest. This group’s product was also judged to be complete and creative. The latter group worked less on the product and demonstrated more boasting and deprecating behaviors. Weingold and Webster reinforced cooperative behaviors in children and found that these behaviors continued, but cooperating behaviors decreased in those who were punished for not cooperating or ignored when they cooperated.

School Size

The size of the group influences the type of cooperative behavior among both teachers and children. In one study, large centers demonstrated more need for control, scheduled routines, and greater rigidity among adults. Teachers in the larger centers were less free to foster the warm, accepting relationships among children so necessary for both cooperation and sharing (Beaty, 1999).

Competition

Cooperation is the opposite of competition. In many classrooms, competition is fostered because of the belief that it is good for children and consistent with the beliefs of our society. This belief is false. Although competition is natural, teachers try to eliminate it whenever possible. Competion has been related to negative social behaviors (Finlinson et al., 2000), destroys group cooperation, and is especially damaging to young children’s self-identity as a part of a group.

To encourage cooperation, you need to reduce competition by (1) playing games that do not have winners and losers, (2) remembering that children are individuals, (3) asking all children to take part in special tasks, and (4) complimenting all the children frequently.