How Can I Help My Kids Develop Better Social Skills?

How to help kids develop the social skills they need

1. Encourage eye-contact

When talking to somebody, encourage your children to look into their eyes and talk about effective communication and to build confidence.

2. Teach them emotions

Let your children imitate a variety of emotions — joy, anger, disappointment, excitement, mischief, weirdness, nervousness, tiredness, terror, danger, etc. Play ‘identify the emotion’ game by making faces or holding placards of different smiley. This helps them differentiate emotions and express better, and not get confused when mingling with other kids or people.

3. Make them communicate

Verbal or nonverbal, your children should learn to express, interact, and respond to social stimulus. Help your children learn appropriate greetings and responses. Kids may need help or guidance to interact with others appropriately, to overcome shyness, to manage a response, and express true feelings. Let your children know that they are free to talk, ask, question, and communicate their needs, desires, beliefs, and ideas.

4.Give them the environment

A lonely child may have difficulty in interacting with the world. Give your children good company, exposure, and chances to interact with different types of people. Kids with social skill deficits often have trouble reading expressions and interacting socially. When kids mingle with other kids or elders, they develop a range of interpersonal skills that become the foundation of their personality.

5. Prepare them for higher social skills

A child who can communicate and express himself/herself fearlessly is armed to face the challenges when he/she grows up to tackle complex situations. Let your children maintain good communication channels, and pick up skills like negotiation, conflict resolution, non-verbal communication, assertiveness, bargaining, public-speaking, etc.

6.Explain personal space

Tell your child that it’s important for everyone to have some personal space to feel comfortable, and practice acceptable ways to interact with someone during playtime.

7.Practice social overtures

Teach kids the proper way to start a conversation, get someone’s attention, or join a group of kids who are already playing together. These are all situations that can be discussed and brainstormed at the dinner table, or in the car on the way to school or activities

The more you know about your child’s specific social challenges the better able you’ll be to help

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Best wishes,

Sruthi Saipraj.

Educational Psychologist, Prakriya Academy Research & Development Team, 0891–2589696