Introduction Children use power in interpersonal relationships since the early years (Hawley, 1999). Power, which is an important element that shapes peer relationships, is defined as being able to make someone else do what they want (Dahl, 2001). Hawley (1999) suggests that preschool children use effective interpersonal strategies in school to gain dominance over their peers. There are very few studies in the literature regarding the power relations among preschool children (Lee & Recchia, 2008; Shin, Recchia, Lee, Lee & Mullarkey, 2004). Lee and Recchia (2008) examined how power plays a critical role in social relationships and how it affects children's classroom experiences. Shin et al. (2004) explored the characteristics of children with ledearship attributes in terms of their use of different power sources. The issues of power has started to be studied in the context of peer relations, especially in relation to bullying (Gültekin Akduman, 2012; Karaca, Gündüz & Aral, 2011; Korkulu & Yılmaz, 2010; Özbey & Alisinanoğlu, 2009; Özkan & Çifci, 2010; Tuesday, 2014; Uysal & Dinçer, 2012; Whitington, 2001). Because the requests of children with more power dominance in the classroom are realized more in the classroom, it is a curious subject what kind of strategy these preschool children with strong power dominance use to realize requests in their classrooms. It is also a question of whether the strategy used to achieve power dominance differs during play time, activity time or circle time. In this context, the purpose of this study is to reveal how children use power in peer relationships and how this power use is related to activities specific to early childhood classrooms. Method This study was designed as a case study, one of the qualitative research approaches. In this study, the participantswere chosen by using one of the purposeful sampling methods, “easily accessible case sampling”, (Patton, 2014). The participants of this study consisted of 19 five-year-old children attending a kindergarten affiliated to a state university in Adana. Nine of these children are boys and 10 are girls. The ages of the children ranged from 58 to 71 months at the time of data collection, and the average class age was 66 months. In order to best describe the current situation in the study; observation, interview and researcher diary were used as data collection techniques. The data collection process took a total of 28 days during nine weeks. The researcher was in the classroom for an average of 3-4 hours a day during the data collection process. Observations took place in the nonparticipant-observer role of the researcher. During the data collection process, the researcher observed the children at play, circle and activity time. During the data collection process, semi-structured and short interviews were conducted with the teacher. The data were analyzed by content analysis method. Inductive approach was applied in content analysis. Frequency calculation was used while reporting the themes. The themes, categories and codes obtained were presented as strategy, method and technique in the findings. Various measures regarding validity and reliability have also been taken. Findings The analysis shows that preschool children use two strategies to achieve power dominance in the classroom. These strategies are; using coercion and voluntary. In the coercion strategy, power dominance was achieved without taking into account the opinions of his friends. The strategy of making them volunteer requires taking the opinions of friends into account. Using coercion is the most commonly used strategy (79.7%) by children, and the majority (83.4%) took place during playtime. Children with dominant character, playmakers and the ones who have toys used the coercion strategy more. Children used this strategy more to protect what they have (toys / items / queues / games / activities). It was observed that children used four methods in this strategy. These; It is in the form of making fait accompli, displaying aggressive behavior, threatening and contacting to the teacher. Making peers to volunteer was a less used strategy (20.3%) by children, and it occurred mostly during playtime (85.7%). This strategy was mostly used by children who were open to communication, loved and accepted by other children, interacted with more children and adhered to the rules. Children mostly used this strategy when they wanted another child to share their possessions (toy / item) with them and when they wanted to be involved in their friends' play or activities. Children used two methods in this strategy, namely, explicit communication and implicit communication. Discussion The coercive strategy is similar to what Watzlawick et al. (2011) called complementary relationship . One of the people with this relationship gives, the other takes. One of them asks and the other does it. One is superior and the other is secondary (Watzlawick, Bavelas & Jackson, 2011). There are studies in the literature that children provide power dominance by coercing their friends (Demirtaş & Sucuoğlu, 2011; Gülay, 2008; Korkulu & Yılmaz, 2010; Lee & Recchia, 2008; Özdemir, 2014; Shin et al., 2004; Whitington, 2001). For example, in Demirtaş and Sucuoğlu's (2011) study, children influenced their friends with threatening them.