“The Heartbreak of Social Rejection”: Young Children’s Expressions about How They Experience Rejection from Peers in ECEC

The purpose of the study is to shed light on children’s bodily experiences of being rejected during play by their peers in kindergarten. The research question is: How do children experience rejection from their peers when playing in kindergarten?

It is evident from the children’s accounts that peer rejection creates stress, and that the bodily pain the rejection causes is experienced in the heart and in the stomach. The emotional pain is described as sadness, loneliness, anger and nervousness. The accounts suggest that being rejected by other children in kindergarten affects children’s perception of themselves and their emotional state in negative ways.

Children (3.5–6 years old) from a kindergarten department in a large Norwegian kindergarten were interviewed and observed. The focus children were selected based on their own statements that they had no one to play with, or that the researcher observed that they spent a lot of time on their own. The children participated voluntarily and could withdraw from the study at any time. The children also recruited each other.

Nergaard, K. (2020). «“The Heartbreak of Social Rejection”: Young Children’s Expressions about How They Experience Rejection from Peers in ECEC». Child Care in Practice, 26(3):226-242.