ABSTRACT

In this article, we examined young Finnish children’s social relationships, characteristics of their parents’ social networks and the role of parental networks in children’s peer relationships. We drew on the data collected from a Finnish longitudinal study known as Steps to the Healthy Development and Well-Being of Children. The data from two measurement points were included in the analyses to explore children’s peer relations at 13 months (N = 1, 212) and 4 years (N = 795). We further studied the association between children’s social networks at different time points and the role of parental sociodemographics and parental social relationships in predicting children’s social networks. Special emphasis was placed on examining how parental social networks are linked with children’s peer relations. Our results revealed a significant association between children’s social relationships at different time points and the significance of parental social networks for children’s peer networks.

摘要

在本文中，我们研究了芬兰幼儿的社会关系、父母社交网络的特征以及父母网络在儿童同伴关系中的作用。我们借鉴了芬兰一项名为“儿童健康发展和福祉的步骤”的纵向研究收集的数据。来自两个测量点的数据被纳入分析中，以探讨儿童在 13 个月 ( N  = 1, 212) 和 4 岁时 ( N = 795）。我们进一步研究了不同时间点儿童社交网络之间的关联以及父母社会人口统计和父母社会关系在预测儿童社交网络中的作用。特别强调检查父母的社交网络如何与儿童的同伴关系联系起来。我们的结果揭示了儿童在不同时间点的社会关系与父母社交网络对儿童同伴网络的重要性之间存在显着关联。