Childhood Friendships In The Sandlot And Children's Development

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The Sandlot is a classic sports film that shows how the role of friendship plays in children’s development. The story takes place in a small suburb outside of Los Angeles in the summer of 1962. The main character “Smalls”, just moved to the town with his mom and step dad. He doesn’t really know how to make friends but started watching a group of boys that walked to the ‘sandlot’. Smalls has always stuck to science projects, so baseball is a new subject to him. The step dad has a love of baseball so when Smalls goes into his office he has trophies and a baseball signed by Babe Ruth. Smalls wants to be able to connect with his step dad, so he tries to learn how to play baseball with the guys. The boys on the team were a wide range baseball …show more content…

This stage is important to the social development of the child as it paves their progressive path into adolescence and later adulthood. Childhood friendships also tend to display the characteristics or situations that society has developed. The sandlot has multiple social contexts of friendships from gender and age-related differences within the types of play that the children engage in. These social contexts are seen though out the film. “The important psychological benefits that a child gains from friendship are an increased self-esteem, a greater emotional intelligence, and an enhanced set of social skills.” (Salisch, …show more content…

“Emotional regulation can lead to more fulfilling social experiences. Children of the same age argue on about the same socio-cognitive and moral level, face the same transitions and life events. These similarities are expected to improve their understanding of their peers’ situation, perhaps to some extent independent of inter-individual differences due to level of development, personality, or upbringing. The second reason follows from the fact that peers form a group. Being together with a group of likeminded peers should intensify some of the emotions children experience.” (Salisch, 2001) The group they formed was a good social experience for them. Without the group I think the boys would not have gone on to do great things if they had not had the

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