Social Influences on the Development of Children's Adaptive Help Seeking: The Role of Parents, Teachers, and Peers

An important way in which elementary- and middle-school students regulate their own learning and intellectual development is by obtaining assistance from others at times of need. At school, a child who engages in adaptive help seeking monitors his or her academic performance, shows awareness of difficulty he or she cannot overcome independently, and remedies that difficulty by requesting assistance from teachers and classmates. In this article, I discuss how parents, teachers, and peers contribute to the development of children’s skills and attitudes associated with adaptive help seeking. I trace early help-seeking behaviors, in particular, in the home and link these to help-seeking behaviors in the classroom.