Relationships with Adults

Coming to you for help, inviting you into a joyful game, or checking your reaction before approaching someone new are ways children build trust in people. Relationships with adults are not about obedience or extroversion. They help children access support and become increasingly willing to express themselves, cooperate, and share.

0–9 months: Responsive care makes relationships reliable. Children use gaze, sound, and movement to seek care, and familiar adults gradually become an expected source of support.
9–18 months: Use trust to explore and ask for help. Shared games, staying close around an unfamiliar person, and bringing an adult to a difficulty show the relationship at work.
18 months–3 years: Extend interaction from a secure base. Children can return for comfort and approach new adults at their own pace.
3–5 years: Communicate more reciprocally and cooperate in more ways. Children actively seek support, express ideas, and sustain back-and-forth activity with trusted adults.

Below are selected skills to notice at specific ages. Age is a developmental reference point; understand each skill alongside what you see in everyday life.

4 months

Communicates needs to familiar adults by looking, smiling, or pointing.

What to notice: Does your baby direct gaze, expression, or movement toward a parent to obtain help or response? Notice the use of a familiar adult as support; every example in the Skill does not need to appear.

How to support it: When needs receive a response within a relationship, babies learn that people can help. Observe signals actively, interpret them in context, try a response, and recalibrate from what the baby does next.

Keep in mind: Do not wait for intense crying, and do not equate this early communication with mature pointing.

6 months

Responds positively to familiar adults' efforts to help with stressful moments.

What to notice: When uncomfortable or startled, does your baby respond positively to support from a familiar parent by moving closer, relaxing, or interacting? They do not have to stop crying immediately every time they are held.

How to support it: Consistent care helps children expect support during difficulty. Offer familiar, gentle help suited to the baby's state, observe what is effective, and adjust.

Keep in mind: Settling may take time; continued crying is not proof of a failed relationship, and comfort should not be withdrawn to test dependence.

9 months

Reacts or may become distressed when separated from familiar adults.

What to notice: When you leave, does your baby notice, search, or express reluctance to separate? Notice a response to change in a familiar relationship; intensity of crying is not a measure of closeness or security.

How to support it: A familiar person's departure changes the support a child expects. Use an understandable goodbye and reliable reunion, with a familiar caregiver ready to respond. Do not disappear secretly to avoid the immediate reaction or create separations as a relationship test.

Keep in mind: A mild response alone also does not mean a lack of attachment.

12 months

Plays games with you, like pat-a-cake.

What to notice: Does your child willingly join a familiar back-and-forth game with you, anticipating and responding to the next turn? Notice shared enjoyment rather than whether a particular action is performed perfectly.

How to support it: Predictable games let children experience mutual attention and response. Begin with familiar actions and interests, wait for your child's continuation, and add small variations.

Keep in mind: Let the child initiate and end too; do not turn the exchange into a performance task or overlook shared delight while tracking correctness.

Moves or stays close to familiar adults for emotional security when unfamiliar adult approaches.

What to notice: When an unfamiliar person approaches, does your child use a familiar parent as a secure source of support by moving closer or checking the parent's reaction? This is not evidence of weak social ability.

How to support it: Existing trust helps children gradually understand a new social situation. Stay accessible, introduce the person naturally, model interaction, and allow the child to watch or return to you.

Keep in mind: Do not force greetings, hugs, or separation, and do not label caution as shyness.

15 months

Seeks help from familiar adults, such as taking the adult's hand and leading them to something the child wants or needs.

What to notice: When help is needed, does your child lead you over, bring an object, or ask in another way? Notice active use of adult support, not only how mature their spoken request is.

How to support it: Reliable help teaches children that difficulty can be approached collaboratively. Respond to the request, model how to make it understandable when needed, then return the part the child can do.

Keep in mind: Do not pretend not to understand as training or take over every action as soon as a signal appears.

2½ years (30 months)

Seeks familiar adults for comfort when distressed or tired.

What to notice: When tired or upset, does your child approach you for comfort? Notice whether trust can be used, without requiring them to explain the cause or settle independently first.

How to support it: Seeking comfort is a way of mobilizing support and does not conflict with growing independence. Respond to the need for closeness first; once the child is calmer, help make sense of what happened.

Keep in mind: Coming back to you is not regression, and explanation should not replace presence.

May engage in positive interactions when meeting new people, such as sharing a book with a visitor.

What to notice: When meeting someone new, does your child share, approach, or respond at their own pace? Notice the possibility of positive interaction without expecting immediate enthusiasm or sustained engagement.

How to support it: Modeling and support from a familiar adult help children carry positive expectations into new relationships. Interact naturally first, recognize a small invitation from your child, help communicate it, then step back.

Keep in mind: Respect refusal and pauses, and keep adult responsibility for judging whether the person and setting are safe.

3½ years (42 months)

Uses adults as a resource to solve problems.

What to notice: When a problem arises, does your child know they can ask, negotiate, or seek a resource from an adult? Notice active use of a relationship for support, not only waiting for an adult to solve it.

How to support it: More complex activities help children learn that different people can offer different forms of help. Respond seriously, model how to explain the difficulty, think together, then leave the child a manageable role.

Keep in mind: Seeking help is not the opposite of independence, and an adult is not the only source of answers.

Sometimes engages in prosocial behavior with adults, such as greeting the teacher or saying goodbye.

What to notice: In a familiar or appropriate adult interaction, does your child show friendliness through a greeting, goodbye, or another response? Notice willingness to connect rather than exact use of a polite phrase.

How to support it: Prosocial exchanges support sustainable relationships with adults. Offer natural modeling and a gentle invitation, accepting gaze, movement, and words as possible responses.

Keep in mind: Avoid public pressure or shame, and never require physical contact such as a hug as proof of politeness.

4½ years (54 months)

Initiates interactions with adults and participates in longer and more reciprocal interactions with trusted adults.

What to notice: Does your child actively communicate with a trusted adult and respond to the adult's topic or action? Notice a longer reciprocal exchange, not merely that the child talks more.

How to support it: Reciprocity requires both people's ideas to be heard and answered. Engage seriously with a topic your child begins, share some information of your own, and leave space for turns to move the exchange forward.

Keep in mind: Avoid using only questions for the child to answer or treating disagreement as a threat to the relationship.

Sources and notes

Better Parenting’s child-development framework draws in part on the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework: Ages Birth to Five. For this pathway, you can also review Head Start’s Relationships with Adults Effective Practice Guide. Official framework sources inform domain, sub-domain, goal, and developmental-progression terminology where applicable. Better Parenting independently organizes the parent-facing What to notice and How to support it explanations and connects them with its own activity library.

The ELOF itself is not a curriculum, assessment, or checklist. Better Parenting’s Skill Assessment and Growth Path are Better Parenting product features, not Head Start assessment tools.

Skill wording and age references on this page come from the Better Parenting child-development framework. A child may show different behaviors in different situations, so understand these examples alongside everyday experience rather than treating one activity as a judgment of an entire sub-domain.

This page helps you understand what you can observe and how you can offer support. To explore your child's current position in this sub-domain, open the corresponding Growth Path in the Better Parenting app and use the Skill Assessment.

Better Parenting Content Team | Updated September 2, 2026