Teach Social Skills

When parents see their children struggling socially, many are tempted to explain and lecture the child on better ways. Unfortunately long lectures tend to fall on deaf ears. There are many ways to go about teaching social skills.

• Use art projects - Teach turn taking by passing coloring papers between children. Teach sharing by offering one glue bottle to three children for a project. Highlight the social skill in conversation while they color. Fine to comment on any frustration, talk about it and brainstorm solutions to lessen the upsets.
• Read story books - There are so many good books about emotions and social exchange. The Berenstain Bears series offers books about sharing, bossiness and teasing. Hooway for Wodney Wat! covers bossiness and teasing, Timothy goes to School deals with social competition. My Many Colored Days and Today I Feel Silly teach about emotions. Don't just read the books, dive into conversation. Ask them what they think about the stories, talk about similar things they've experienced.
• Play movement games - Simon Says, Wigglelow and Hullabaloo all teach listening skills. Three-legged races teach cooperative efforts.
• Role play - Re-enact situations similar to those that are a struggle. Encourage children to play each role so they can think about the struggle from others' perspectives.
• Puppet shows - If children aren't comfortable with role playing themselves, bring out the puppets or the dollbabies. Children may be more open to this play as it is removed from them, more pretend.
• Ask hypotheticals - We call this the "What if" game. Ask children a wide variety of what ifs based on their own social situations. Brainstorm many possible answers and outcomes for each scenario.
• Give opportunities for play - All the teaching in the world won't do much good if children don't have opportunities to practice themselves. Invite friends over, meet at the playground, plan outings or join playgroups. Children who struggle with social skills need more practice, not less!

Social Competence

Social Competence is defined as the ability to achieve personal goals while maintaining positive relationships. For children all this jargon means is, can they play while keeping friends. If your child's play is often ending in upset, aggression or rejection, it is time to look at their social skills.

Two year olds should be able to work around each other physically, play without hurting each other and start to manage turn-taking. Three year olds should start to notice other's emotions, set common goals in play and realize personal space issues. Four year olds should be improving in social entry (getting into on-going play), able to handle sharing and have solid emotion language (at least able to accurately label emotions).

If your child is having significant difficulty with social skills, there are several good books such as Raising Your Child's Social IQ. In many areas, social skills groups are also available both privately (through psychologist, social work, speech/language or OT offices) and publicly through your guidance counselor at their school. Be proactive - Start teaching!

Social Entry

Social entry is how children get into ongoing play. Imagine you and your child walk into a busy preschool classroom. There are four children already playing in the housekeeping center and your child wants to join them. Social entry refers to how your child enters. It is also how you get into a conversation at a busy cocktail party.

There are a few ineffective ways to enter in. The first is the child who stands back and watches, waiting to be invited in. Unless those playing kids really, really need someone to be the dog likely your child will end up just standing alone. The other ineffective way to enter is the child who tries to take charge or change the on-going play as they enter.

It also tends to backfire if we send children in saying, "Go ask them 'Can I play?'" The power for the other children here is in saying "no" you want the power to be in saying "yes" which leads to our first tip.

Effective ways include

• Coach children to ask more specific questions as they enter play. Focus on questions that give the already playing children power in saying "yes." Such questions could include "How can I play?" or "What can I be?" Here the power for the playing children is in assigning roles so they are more likely to say "yes."
  
• Teach children to observe play first. Children will be more effective if they can join the action that is already taking place and to do this a child must know what is happening. A moment of observation can be helpful.
  
• Teach children to offer to help. If the playing children are building a tower, your child might say, "What can I build?" or "Do you need this block?" or more openly, "How can I help?"
  
• Coach children to compliment the children they want to join. I know this sounds a bit manipulative but it often works. if there is a group of children painting at the art table and your child walks over and says to one, "Wow, that's a pretty tree you painted! May I paint too?" the other is likely to make space.
  
• Teach children to join ongoing play rather than change the play as they enter. Children who try to change the play as they enter usually fail. They will be more successful if they join even for five minutes before suggesting the new activity.
  
• For children who feel shy to ask questions, it may be that they just need to physically join in the play. If there are ten children playing tag and running around, your child might just join in the running and be child eleven.