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Four two-year-old children contentedly engage in parallel play at the sand table. Audrey shares what she is doing with the teacher (camera person) by saying, “I’m making a cake”. Periodically, she pours sand into the green measuring cup located in one corner of sand table. A conflict develops when Pixie (blond girl) notices the green measuring cup and begins to use it in her play. Although he is not directly influenced by the girls’ disagreement, one of the boys decides to take on the role of mediator. Notice how he calmly works to maintain the play by enforcing social rule. The boy confirms with Audrey that she had “the green one”. Then he proceeds to facilitate the return of the container by offering Pixie an explanation. He says, “Audrey’s is the green one.”
In this video clip, we also see how the development of the me-self emerges in children’s language. Notice that the toddlers use pronouns to refer to themselves. For example, listen for Audrey’s repeated use of the word, "Mine". Her use of a single word to convey entire idea or sentence is also an example of holophrastic speech. In addition, notice that Pixie demonstrates self knowledge when she offers Audrey a self-representation . Pixie describes herself by saying, "I showing that I can share".

Length of stand-alone master video clip: 2 minutes 29 seconds

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Keywords: Twos, Sand, Language, Sharing, Negotiation, Conflict Resolution