Social skills are important and as children develop they will learn vital skills to help them adapt to social settings.
The development of social skills in children depends on their personality, age and environment. When a child is supported in an environment where they’re provided with opportunities to master skills through repetition, practice and feedback – they’re more likely to develop greater social skills.
Types of social skills a child can learn
- Interaction skills – Like smiling and making eye contact with people they’re talking to
- Approaching skills – How to approach another person or a group
- Engaging skills – How to share, take turns, wait, follow rules, etc.
- Friendship skills – How to include others, show appropriate affection, etc.
- Empathy – How to take perspective, to relate to others, and care for them
- Communication skills – How to express themselves, and how to listen and give others space to express themselves
- Sense of humour – How to have a laugh during appropriate times and situations
- Conflict resolution – How to manage disagreements in a socially acceptable manner
- Assertiveness – How to say no, how to stand up for themselves and how to get their needs met in a helpful way.
The role of parents and carers
Parents and carers can play an important role in the social development of children. Children tend to model the interactions that they witness from adults in their lives. When you display certain behaviours, your child watches, listens and learns from your behaviours.
Parents and carers can shape their children’s social skills by:
- providing opportunities for the child to succeed in gaining social skills. For example, playing games such as snakes and ladders as a family. This gives you opportunities to model and encourage sharing, listening, taking turns, etc.
- providing instructions to children clearly and directly. For example, telling them “It’s polite to say please when you ask for something,” or “when we play a game, we say well done to the winner and we shake their hand”
- being prepared to repeat instructions over and over. Children will take time to learn new skills
- Helping children to think of their own solutions rather than telling them how to solve a problem. For example, asking them, “What do you think you need to do here? What are your options?”
- providing feedback. Children need help to learn that there are certain results/ consequences for certain behaviours. Therefore, it’s helpful for a child to be asked to think about how different behaviours might produce a different result. For example, asking them “When you yelled, what happened? If you didn’t yell, what do you think might have happened? What can you do differently?”
- talking with children in ways that can help them see that their behaviours are separate from them, as people. Children sometimes struggle to see that who they are is separate to their behaviours. Therefore, they might view themselves as bad people if they do something you don’t like. Saying to a child, “This hitting is a lot of trouble!” is far less damaging to their view of themselves than, “You are a lot of trouble.”
During a conflict
- Help children come to win-win solutions. A win-win philosophy leads to assertive communication and problem solving
- Encourage compromise and negotiation
- Encourage everyone to be willing to fix the problem
- Encourage everyone to say what the problem is for them
- Attack the problem, not the person
- Look for answers so everyone gets what they need
- Be aware of how you interact with others, as your child is learning from you.
More information
Anglicare Southern Queensland offers a range of Children and Parenting programs to help children to develop social skills. To learn more about our programs, or to get in touch with our team, please call 1300 114 397.