Social behaviour undergoes critical changes during childhood. My work explores the underlying neurocognitive and developmental mechanisms of social skills (i.e. empathy and theory of mind) and behaviour (i.e. sharing and helping). I show that higher-order control processes are critical to the development of both. I propose that these insights can be leveraged for devising interventions, which seek to a) establish a causal role of specific mechanisms, b) improve skills critical for forming social-bonds and c) provide an assay for studying sensitive periods.