Production data from a longitudinal study of seven children in their first attempts to produce words containing fricatives are presented to illustrate how children use four distinct strategies to approach this relatively difficult class of sounds. The strategies are: (1) favorite sounds--an approach used by a subject who seemed to enjoy playing with different ways to say words containing mid to back fricatives and affricates; (2) avoidance--used by three subjects and characterized by the failure of a child to produce certain sounds and the child's refusal to learn adult words containing the problem sounds until a dramatic reversal of the avoidance strategy brings on an exponential growth in fricative production; (3) syllable fricative--a strategy used by three subjects involving the vowelless production of words containing fricatives; and (4) word position--an approach exemplified by three subjects where fricatives are produced in postvalic or final position. The four strategies provide ways for the child to concentrate on a certain class of sounds and to use them in situations where they might be easier to produce. The strategies are less than clearly related to further phonological development and even less related to resulting adult phonologies. Tabular data are included. (EJS)