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Background. There is the is one of the most important in pedagogy and psychology problem of relationships between preschoolers. The nature of the relationship between children at this age has a significant impact on the process of development and socialization; understanding the differences in ideas about peers in older preschool children with different sociometric status reveals the features of their interaction.

Objectives. The study identified the characteristics of the idea of a peer in older preschool children with different sociometric status.

Sample. The study involved 140 preschoolers aged 6-7 years, including 69 girls and 71 boys, who had been attending state preschool educational institutions for at least two years. Consent was obtained from all preschoolers’ parents of to conduct the psychological study.

Methods. The following methods were used: “Dva domika” (“Two Houses”) by T.D. Martsinkovskaya; “Rasskaz o druge” (“A Story about a Friend”) by E.O. Smirnova, V.M. Kholmogorova; “Neokonchennyye situatsii” (“Unfinished Situations”) by A.M. Shchetinina, L.V. Kirs; “Le Test-Film” (“Film Test”) by R. Gille.

Results. The results were obtained on the differences in the ideas about peers in older preschool children with different sociometric status. Thus, preschoolers with high and average sociometric status have a positive idea of peers, open and safe for communication. When children with low sociometric status imagine peers more negatively and are wary of them, they are less inclined to establish close relationships with other children and may experience communication difficulties.

Conclusions. There is a relationship between sociometric status in a peer group and the idea of a peer in children of early to school age. The obtained results emphasize the importance of sociometric status and the need to take into account the position of a preschooler in a group when building individual work.

Relevance. This article is devoted to the problem of comparative analysis of preschoolers’ drawings on the theme “My family”, brought up in a full or incomplete family. This topic is extremely relevant not only because of the increase in divorces in Russia and the related difficulties of raising and developing young children, but also from the point of view of the data collection method. Typically, surveys of parents and other caring adults are used in such studies, while the “voice of a child” remains unaccounted for. The purpose of this work is to explore the possibilities of using children’s drawings to diagnose the peculiarity of the social situation of development in a modern family and the emotional well–being of a child in the family.

Research methodology and progress. The projective technique “Family Drawing” as modified by the authors was used in the work. The study involved 44 children from 4 years 9 months to 7 years, average age 5 years 10 months; 18 boys and 26 girls (41% and 59%).

The result of the study made it possible to confirm the invariance of the significance of various parameters of the children’s drawing on the theme “My family” over the past 25 years. Three key bipolar factors were identified for evaluating children’s family drawings: “Structured relationships in the family – Adult dominance”, “Inclusion in the family structure – Detachment from the family” and “Loneliness – Positive emotional connection with the father”.

Conclusions. These factors make it possible to record the peculiarities of the emotional well-being of modern boys and girls raised in full and incomplete families. Firstly, the girls’ drawings clearly show positive emotional well-being, identification with the mother and orientation towards traditional gender-role relationships in the family, while the boys’ drawings are distinguished by the dominance of the parental position of adults and the child’s identification with the family as a special social group. Secondly, the emotional well-being of children from single-parent families is clearly worse than that of children from full families, and boys from single-parent families find themselves in the most difficult social situation of development.