This literature review outlines the challenges and constraints which relationships to parents, peers, and friends offer for children’s emotional development, including the development of appraisal, experience, expression, and regulation of emotion. Parents are important for their children’s emotional development not only because they are attachment figures but also because of their cognitive and emotional expertise who instruct their offspring on the use of emotion labels, appraisals, expressions, and regulation strategies. In addition, parents introduce their children to cultural and subcultural rules on emotions. Yet parents’ understanding of their children’s emotions may be constrained by their social role as parents. Converging evidence suggests that display rules among peers promote the dampening of many emotions in many situations, especially those of vulnerability and anger. School-age children’s increasing use of distancing strategies may help them achieve this “cool” public self-presentation. Intimate friendship’s which permit (and may even require) the disclosure of private emotional experiences challenge preadolescents to learn how to be supportive to the friend in need and how to manage anger and contempt in these close relationships. Handling issues of trust and exposure, jealousy, and envy are related challenges for friendships.

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Because anger in close relationships is not only a source of strain, but can also serve to further emotional competence, a questionnaire was constructed on nine strategies of anger regulation within a same-sex friendship (SAR). A factor analysis of the children's version resulted in four factors. A confirmatory factor analysis corroborated the comparability of the factor structures of the children's and the adolescents' version of the SAR. Results of a 5-year longitudinal study suggest that participants tended to use negotiation more frequently as adolescents than as children. Aggressive and distancing strategies declined in adolescence. Results are discussed under the perspective that learning to manage conflicts of interest and anger without resorting to hostility (or avoidance) is a social task in friendship.

Gary and Ron are practicing soccer moves on the playground. They have all their equipment -goal, shinpads, and regulation ball -and they ' re having fun together. Ron shows Gary how to head the ball into the goal, both shouting, " Hurray! " But then things get complicated, changing fast, as interaction often does. Ron, thinking twice about sharing his best technique, kicks the ball away from Gary on the next play. Then Huynh, who had been watching from the sidelines, asks Gary if he can join them. Simultaneously, Gary trips over a swiftly kicked ball and slumps to the ground. And just then, Jack, the class bully, approaches, laughing at Gary ' s discomfort, then angrily demanding they leave so that he and his buddies can use the fi eld. Somehow, Gary deals with all of this. He hands the ball to Huynh, extends a hand to Ron, and calmly tells Jack, " It ' s our turn now. "What do emotions have to do with social development? Our example abounds with instances where emotions help determine the fl ow and outcome of interaction. First, behaviors of others in one ' s social group often constitute antecedent conditions for children ' s emotions. When Ron became angry, it was because his goal of being the " best " was threatened. Huynh approached diffi dently because he often had been " left out " from play. Second, when children exhibit emotion within dyads or groups, this emotional expressiveness also is important information for others involved. When Gary experienced delight at making a goal, he wanted to keep playing; others, like Huynh, wanted to join him. Jack is irritable and easily provoked by those he perceives to be " in his way. " His

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Little is known about what factors predict the formation of reciprocal same‐sex friendships during early adolescence. To examine whether social‐emotional competencies aid in establishing and maintaining these friendships at the beginning and end of seventh grade, 380 German youth (mean age = 12.6 years; 49 percent boys; 100 percent White) reported on their peer support networks and on three broad categories of social‐emotional competencies (i.e., non‐constructive anger regulation, constructive anger regulation, emotional awareness, and expression disclosure). Regression analyses indicated the number of reciprocal friendships at Time 2 (T2) was predicted by adolescents' constructive anger regulation through redirection of attention, and social support when angry at the friend, even after controlling for Time 1 number of friends and peer acceptance. Among girls, willingness to self‐disclose marginally predicted their number of reciprocal friends at T2. Results are discussed in terms of the specific social‐emotional competencies that facilitate involvement in reciprocal friendships.