the role of children of the same age in child devolepment?

Answer 1

Not only the same age but similar ages too.The role is very big.Children earn how to communicate and behave with other children.Other children show the child that he/she is not the king/princess.

Answer 2

Under 3, there's no use for same age kids to be around in a child's development. Until age 5/6, the bulk of the child's need is for mom.
After age 5/6, the role of peers is to help the child individuate from and then ultimately break from the parents.

Answer 3

Children learn a LOT by imitation. At first, they imitate their parents, but as they develop a social circle of their own, they imitate the children around them. I remember when my first daughter went to preschool for the first day, when she came home, she seemed to 'get' how to play with toys independently for 30-60 minutes at a time.
Similarly, we have noticed with our 2nd daughter that she is much more likely to imitate her sister than us, her parents!
Aside from 'knowing' that we need to imitate others to be accepted into the social world, we also seem to be 'hard-wired' for imitating people who are like us.
The problem a parent faces when a child imitates is if the behavior imitated isn't appropriate, this is a good time to open a dialogue with the child so s/he can better choose behavior to imitate that will be acceptable to everyone.

Answer 4

Big. Other children influence the child himself. All children want to have friends and want to "impress" the other kids. So it's kind of like mini peer pressure.