A Chinese study tracing the shift in how children resolve conflict between ages 3 and 5 — and what drives it.

Introduction: “Share with Your Friend” Isn’t Enough

On playgrounds, in classrooms, in living rooms — conflict between children happens daily. Grabbing toys, yelling, crying, hitting — these scenes are inescapable in early childhood.

At these moments, most parents and teachers instinctively say things like “Share,” “Take turns,” “Be nice.” It’s a natural response: teach the rule, encourage the good behavior.

But one question remains. Why, after being told “share” dozens of times, does the same child grab the toy again the next day? There’s a wide gap between knowing a rule and actually acting on it. And what closes that gap may not be repeating the rule but something entirely different.

A study in Zhejiang, China, examined 90 children aged 3–5 and showed, with concrete numbers, how emotion understanding relates to peer conflict resolution strategies.

The Core Research Questions

The Zhejiang Normal University team asked two questions:

“How do peer conflict resolution strategies differ by age and gender?”

“Can emotion understanding predict conflict resolution strategies?”

“Conflict resolution strategies” here mean concrete behaviors — grabbing, crying and giving up, or saying “I’ll go first, then you.” “Emotion understanding” is a layered capacity: reading facial expressions, inferring why someone is upset, understanding that people can hide real feelings.

What Was Measured

Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC)

Emotion understanding was measured at three levels:

  • External understanding — recognizing emotions from facial expressions and knowing what situations cause which emotions (e.g., receiving a birthday gift makes you happy)
  • Mental understanding — understanding others’ desires, beliefs, and emotion concealment (e.g., a friend may smile but actually feel upset)
  • Reflective understanding — understanding mixed emotions, emotion regulation, moral emotions (e.g., you can feel both happy and sad at once)

A teacher conducted it one-on-one in 10–15 minutes.

Conflict Resolution Strategy Questionnaire (CRSQ)

Teachers rated 10 behaviors they’d observed in each child:

  • 5 positive strategies: negotiating, taking turns, yielding, asking an adult for help, explaining reasons
  • 5 negative strategies: grabbing, hitting, yelling, crying, avoiding

Each item was rated from 1 (“never”) to 5 (“very often”).

Study Design and Participants

  • Children: 90 (30 aged 3, 30 aged 4, 30 aged 5)
  • Gender: evenly split within each age group (15 boys, 15 girls)
  • Region: Zhejiang, China
  • Design: cross-sectional (comparing three age groups at one time)
  • Statistics: ANOVA, correlation, regression

Results: The Reversal Between 3 and 5

From Negative Strategies to Positive Strategies

The most striking finding is the dramatic reversal between ages 3 and 5.

Age 3: Negative strategy score (15.43) is higher than positive (11.73). At this age, children more often grab, cry, or yell during conflict.

Age 5: Positive strategy score (18.57) is higher than negative (13.77). Negotiating, taking turns, and explaining reasons dominate.

The shift was highly significant (for positive strategies: F = 55.92, p < 0.001). Age 4 sat precisely in between — the transition was happening.

Girls Make the Transition Faster

Girls scored higher on positive strategies (16.16) than boys (14.22), significantly (p = 0.013). Interestingly, there was no gender difference in emotion understanding itself. That means the ability to understand emotions is comparable, but the speed of translating it into behavior differs. The researchers lean toward a socialization explanation — “girls are trained more to suppress aggression and act prosocially.”

Emotion Understanding Grows With Age

Total TEC score showed a clear age effect (H = 48.51, p < 0.001):

  • Age 3: median external understanding 1, median mental understanding 0
  • Age 5: median external understanding 3, median mental understanding 1

A 3-year-old is at the basic level of reading facial expressions; a 5-year-old starts to understand that “what someone wants” and “what they actually feel” may differ.

The Key Finding: “Mental Understanding” Is the Conflict Resolution Key

The most important result is the correlation between emotion understanding and conflict resolution strategies.

The overall correlation between TEC and conflict resolution scores was r = 0.73 (p < 0.01) — very strong. Children with better emotion understanding used more positive strategies (r = 0.67) and fewer negative ones (r = -0.52).

After controlling for age and gender, emotion understanding explained 69% of the variance in conflict resolution strategies (R² = 0.69).

Among its sub-components, mental understanding was the strongest predictor. Mental understanding means grasping others’ desires, inferring their beliefs, and knowing emotions can be concealed. Children high in this ability:

  • Used more positive strategies (β = 0.15, p < 0.05)
  • Used significantly fewer negative strategies (β = -0.50, p < 0.001)

Why Is “Mental Understanding” Decisive?

Picture a toy dispute.

The 3-year-old’s mind: “I want this toy. That kid has it. I’ll take it.” Their own wants are vivid; the other child’s desires aren’t visible. That’s egocentric thinking.

The 5-year-old’s mind: “I want it, but they also want it. If I grab, they’ll get mad. What if I say ‘I’ll play for a bit, then give it to you’?” They can factor in the other’s desire and likely reaction.

The difference is mental understanding. Knowing what another person wants, what they’ll feel, and that inside and outside can differ — this is what opens “negotiation” as an alternative to “grabbing.”

As the researchers put it:

“Children with higher mental comprehension tend to resolve peer conflicts in an appropriate manner, without resorting to aggressive approaches.”

Practical Implications

“How Do You Think Your Friend Feels?” Is More Effective Than “Share”

This study suggests the most effective thing a parent can do in conflict situations. Instead of repeating “share” or “be nice,” asking “How do you think your friend is feeling right now?” or “If you grabbed it, how would they feel?” nurtures the capacity that underlies conflict resolution.

A 3-Year-Old Grabbing Toys Isn’t a Character Problem — It’s a Developmental Stage

A 3-year-old who grabs, won’t share, and yells isn’t being mean. At this age, children are still in an egocentric phase, and the ability to read others’ minds hasn’t developed yet. When the median “mental understanding” score is 0, that ability hasn’t even begun. This isn’t a discipline problem; it’s a timing problem.

Emotion Reading Practice Is the Foundation of Social Skill

Asking “why do you think this child is crying?” while reading a picture book, saying “Dad looks tired right now, doesn’t he?” in daily life, or debriefing after a conflict with “how did you feel then?” — these are natural trainers of emotion understanding. As the capacity accumulates, children will make better choices in conflict on their own.

Limitations

  • Cross-sectional design means the same children weren’t followed as they grew. A longitudinal study tracking children across ages 3–5 is needed.
  • Conflict resolution strategies were teacher-reported. Teacher subjectivity could influence ratings, and behavior outside the classroom (home, playground) isn’t captured.
  • A single region of China limits cultural generalizability.
  • Home environment and parenting style were not controlled. How much parents talk about emotions and how they intervene in conflict likely matter but weren’t measured.

Final Thoughts

A 3-year-old grabbing toys isn’t “bad behavior”; it’s the natural response of a child whose ability to see others’ minds hasn’t developed yet. Two years later, when that same child can say “I’ll go first, then give it to you,” what changed wasn’t the memorized rule — it was the growth of emotional understanding.

Saying “share” ten times matters less than asking “how does your friend feel?” once.

Source: Cao, Y., Wang, H., Lv, Y., & Xie, D. (2023). The influence of children’s emotional comprehension on peer conflict resolution strategies. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1142373. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1142373