Social skills activities for adults
10 Best Activities + PDF
Being socially awkward is not just a problem kids face; adults can battle with social skills too, leading to anxiety and even serious phobias.
Struggles with social skills in adulthood can cause avoidance of social situations and interfere with building long-lasting relationships.
Providing social skills training to clients with anxiety, fear of public speaking, and similar issues could ensure more optimal functioning.
This article provides strategies and training options for the development of various social skills. Several resources to help target specific struggles related to the development of social skills in adults are also included, and the approaches can be tailored to improve social responses in specific domains.
Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free. These science-based exercises will explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology including strengths, values, and self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students, or employees.
This Article Contains:
- Social Skills Training for Adults Explained
- Social Skills Coaching: 2 Best Activities
- Role-Playing Exercises: 4 Scripts & Examples
- Top 2 Resources & Worksheets
- 4 Insightful Videos & Podcasts
- PositivePsychology.com’s Helpful Tools
- A Take-Home Message
- References
Social Skills Training for Adults Explained
Social skills training includes interventions and instructional methods that help an individual improve and understand social behavior. The goal of social skills training is to teach people about verbal and nonverbal behaviors that are involved in typical social interactions (“Social,” n.d.).
Social skills training is usually initiated when adults have not learned or been taught appropriate interpersonal skills or have trouble reading subtle cues in social interactions. These instances can also be associated with disorders that impede social development, such as autism.
Therapists who practice social skills training first focus on breaking down more complex social behaviors into smaller portions. Next, they develop an individualized program for patients, depending on what social skills they need to work on, and gradually introduce those skills to their patients, building up their confidence through gradual exposure.
For instance, a person who has trouble making eye contact because of anxiety in social situations might be given strategies to maintain eye contact by the therapist. Eye contact is the foundation for most social interaction, and interventions will often start with improving the individual’s ability to maintain eye contact.
During therapy, other challenging areas will be identified such as starting or maintaining a conversation or asking questions. Each session will focus on different activities that typically involve role-play and sometimes will take place in a group setting to simulate different social experiences.
Once confidence has been built up during therapy or social skills group settings, these social skills can be brought into daily life.
Useful assessments: Tests, checklists, questionnaires, & scales
Before engaging your clients in social skills interventions or any type of therapeutic intervention, it is important to determine if social skills therapy is a good approach to help them with their current situation.
The Is Social Skills Training Right for Me? checklist is a self-assessment opportunity for clients to determine if social skills therapy is appropriate for their specific situation or if another approach will be more beneficial.
However, self-assessment activities can sometimes be unreliable, as the individual might not fully understand the treatment models that are available to them. Additionally, if a client has issues with social skills, they may not be aware of their deficiencies in social situations.
In these situations, therapists should ask clients about the issues they are having and encourage them to engage in self-questioning during sessions.
9 Questions to ask your clients
Prior to starting social skills training or activities, the therapist and client should narrow down which areas need help.
A therapist can do this by asking the client a series of questions, including:
- Where do you think you are struggling?
- Are there any social situations that make you feel anxious, upset, or nervous?
- Do you avoid any specific social situations or actions?
- Have you ever had anyone comment on your social behavior? What have they said?
- What do you think will help you improve the skills you are struggling with?
Clients can also ask themselves some questions to determine if the social skills therapy process is right for them.
These questions can include:
- What aspects of my life am I struggling with?
- Are there specific social situations or skills that I struggle with?
- Do I have trouble keeping or maintaining relationships with friends, family members, and coworkers?
- Am I avoiding specific social situations out of fear?
Getting clients to ask these questions will help determine if this process will benefit them.
Having clients “buy in” to the process is important, to ensure that the approach is right for them and increase the likelihood that they will be engaged to complete activities with a reasonable degree of efficacy.
Social Skills Coaching: 2 Best Activities
Eye contact is considered one of the most important aspects of communication.
It is estimated that adults make eye contact 30–60% of the time in general conversation, increasing to 60–70% of the time when trying to form a more intimate relationship (Cognitive Development Learning Centre, 2019).
Giving people who are struggling socially the tools to make more eye contact is usually the first step in social skills training exercises.
The Strategies for Maintaining Eye Contact worksheet provides some practical strategies and tips to practice making eye contact.
Sometimes, people who struggle with making eye contact overcompensate, leading to social blunders while simply trying to increase their ability to socialize effectively.
This handy worksheet on Do’s and Don’ts When Making Eye Contact breaks down exactly what is acceptable when making eye contact and what behaviors should be avoided.
Role-Playing Exercises: 4 Scripts & Examples
Often, one of the most prominent struggles for people lacking social skills is starting a conversation, especially with people they are not familiar with.
Fleming (2013) details a helpful method for people who struggle with starting conversations. The ARE method can be used to initiate a conversation and gain an understanding of the person’s interests to facilitate a strong relationship.
- Anchor:
Connect the conversation to your mutually shared reality (e.g., common interests) or the setting in which you encountered the individual. - Reveal:
Provide some personal context to help deepen the connection between you and the other person. - Encourage:
After giving them some context, provide the other person with positive reinforcement to encourage them to share.
This worksheet Starting a Conversation – The ARE Method guides participants through each step in the ARE process. It also provides examples of how the ARE method can be incorporated into a typical conversation and used as a workable strategy in social skills training activities.
A Guide to Small Talk: Conversation Starters and Replies provides an outline of conversation ideas to help start any conversation, no matter the setting.
After developing the ability to start a conversation, being able to project assertiveness and understand one’s limits is essential in ensuring clear communication.
These worksheets on Different Ways to Say ‘No’ Politely and Using ‘I’ Statements in Conversation facilitate assertive communication and give clients the confidence to set personal limits.
Top 2 Resources & Worksheets
Problem solving is another skill people seeking social skills therapy often want to develop further.
A lack of opportunity to learn coping strategies and difficulty with emotional regulation have been associated with anxiety and low problem-solving abilities (Anderson & Kazantzis, 2008).
An individual’s lack of ability to problem solve in social situations significantly affects their ability to come up with reasonable solutions to typical social problems, which in turn, causes them to avoid more difficult social situations.
Practicing social problem solving is a key component of social skills training. This worksheet on Social Problem Solving allows your clients to define the problems they are facing and rate the potential solutions from low to high efficacy.
Based on the rating, therapists can instruct clients to practice their social reasoning during sessions. Practicing these skills builds clients’ confidence and increases the likelihood that they will access these solutions under pressure.
Similarly, the Imagining Solutions to Social Problems worksheet implements a related process, but challenges participants to engage in a visualization activity.
While engaging in visualization, participants have the opportunity to imagine what they would say or do, and reflect on what they have learned and why the solution they chose was best for that particular problem.
4 Insightful Videos & Podcasts
Supplementing modeling and practical activities with interactive audio-visual aids, such as podcasts and videos, is an essential practice in ensuring that patients seeking social skills training are getting multiple perspectives to develop their social intelligence.
Below, we have provided resources to help your clients with different social skills and situations.
Videos
An introvert’s guide to social freedom – Kaspars Breidaks
This TEDx talk focuses on providing guidelines for self-identified introverts. In this video, Breidaks frames introversion as an opportunity, rather than a weakness.
Based on his experiences moving from a small town to a big city and eventually starting improv comedy, he developed a workshop to help integrate principles of improvisation into social skills training.
His workshops focus on creating connections through eye contact and breaking through shyness by training the small talk muscle. Because of his experience, he recommends you say yes to yourself before saying yes to others. Breidaks theorizes that only by developing our awareness of our own true emotions and thoughts can we become more comfortable interacting with others.
This video is helpful if your patients need workable tips to improve their interactions with strangers and is an excellent complement to some of our worksheets on developing skills for small talk.
10 Ways to have a better conversation – Celeste Headlee
This TEDx talk is focused on tactics to have more effective conversations.
In her TED talk, Headlee emphasizes the importance of honesty, clarity, and listening to others as well as yourself.
Headlee shares her ideas about how to talk and listen to others, specifically focusing on sustaining clear, coherent conversation and the importance of clear, direct communication.
She argues that technology has interfered with the development of interpersonal skills, stating that conversation is an art that is fundamentally underrated and should be emphasized more, especially among young children.
The main point Headlee tries to get across is to avoid multitasking and pontificating during conversation. Individuals who are struggling with active listening and keeping a conversation going would benefit from the tips she offers in this video, as she uses a lot of the same principles when interviewing her radio guests to ensure that she is getting the most out of their appearances.
She specifically emphasizes the importance of being continually present while talking and listening to someone, which is strongly emphasized in social skills training.
Podcasts
How Can I Say This – Beth Buelow
This podcast provides tips and advice on challenging social situations including navigating difficult conversations, giving and receiving feedback in a professional setting, and negotiating your salary.
Each episode also provides techniques or approaches to help listeners become more confident when dealing with different social situations. The podcast also takes listener questions about dealing with social situations and issues.
If your clients are struggling with introducing themselves to new people, they may benefit from the episodes on talking to strangers and how to have difficult conversations.
Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Social Skills Coaching – Patrick King
King specializes in social interaction and communication, and he is a social skills coach based in San Francisco, California.
King focuses on using emotional intelligence and understanding human interaction to help break down emotional barriers, improve listeners’ confidence, and equip people with the tools they need for success.
Although King’s expertise is centered on romantic relationships, this podcast provides strategies to improve one’s emotional awareness and engage in better communication.
People engaging in social skills training would benefit from the episode on social sensitivity, which examines the social dynamics of the brain. It also explains why our brains are programmed to respond more to specific traits (e.g., warmth, dominance) and why people with those traits are often elevated to higher positions within the social hierarchy.
Available on Apple Podcasts.
PositivePsychology.com’s Helpful Tools
There are several resources available on our website to complement the social skills training that you are providing to your clients.
Our Emotional Intelligence Masterclass© trains helping professionals in methodology that helps increase their client’s emotional intelligence.
The client workbook has several exercises that practitioners can give their clients to develop an awareness of their emotions and, subsequently, understand how those emotions might contribute to interactions with others.
Our Positive Psychology Toolkit© provides over 400 exercises and tools, and the Social Network Investment exercise, included in the Toolkit, focuses on reflecting on a client’s current social network. By further looking into the amount of time and investment devoted to the members of their social network, clients can further identify who is supportive of their endeavors and who negatively affects experiences.
With this knowledge, relationships can be analyzed before devoting even more time and investment that might not facilitate positive emotions.
People who struggle with initiating conversation might also have trouble talking about their emotions. Our exercise on Asking for Support, also in the Toolkit, can provide assistance to someone having trouble communicating their emotions.
It also provides strategies to practice asking for help when needed. This exercise also gives you the opportunity to identify any personal barriers that are impending your ability to seek help from others.
You might be interested in this sister article, Social Skills Training for Kids, which provides top resources for teachers. To enhance your knowledge, our Social Skills Books for Adults & Kids is a must-read selection of top books.
If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others enhance their wellbeing, this signature collection contains 17 validated positive psychology tools for practitioners. Use them to help others flourish and thrive.
A Take-Home Message
Improving social skills is an important skill to develop for anyone trying to facilitate professional and personal connections.
However, sometimes clients might not even realize they need targeted interventions to help with their social skills, and they might approach a therapist with other challenges around anxiety entering new situations.
For that reason, we hope this article provided valuable options for the development of social skills, with useful activities and social skills worksheets to be incorporated into your sessions.
We encourage you and your clients to explore these exercises together and engage in goal-setting tools to target areas that will benefit their daily lives, relationships, and communication.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free.
- Anderson, G., & Kazantzis, N. (2008). Social problem-solving skills for adults with mild intellectual disability: A multiple case study. Behaviour Change, 25(2), 97–108.
- Cognitive Development Learning Centre. (2019). Training eye contact in communication.
Retrieved May 4, 2021, from https://cognitive.com.sg/training-eye-contact-in-communication/ - Fleming, C. (2013). It’s the way you say it: Becoming articulate, well-spoken and clear (2nd ed.). Berrett-Koehler.
- Social skills training. (n.d.). In Encyclopedia of mental disorder. Retrieved May 4, 2021, from http://www.minddisorders.com/Py-Z/Social-skills-training.html
11 Social Skills Worksheets for Seamless Social Interactions
Perhaps you feel shy, awkward, or anxious around other people.
And that’s okay.
All of us, at times, experience similar feelings and find making conversation difficult while we struggle to leave a good impression (MacLeod, 2018).
Social problems can be helped. Shyness and anxiety can be identified and managed, and conversation skills can be practiced and improved.
This article provides a wealth of worksheets for building and developing social skills in children, students, and adults. You can practice them individually, in counseling, and in group sessions to become socially skilled.
Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Relationships Exercises for free. These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients build healthy, life-enriching relationships.
This Article Contains:
- 2 Best Social Skills Worksheets for Adults
- Developing Social Skills: 3 Worksheets for Children
- 4 Best Activities for Children and Teenagers
- Helpful Worksheets for Students
- 3 CBT Worksheets to Use With Clients
- Group Counseling Activities
- A Look at Social Skills Training in the Workplace
- Resources From PositivePsychology.com
- A Take-Home Message
- References
2 Best Social Skills Worksheets for Adults
“After you accept that you’re still going to encounter some social unease from time to time, your aim should be to become socially functional” (MacLeod, 2018, p. 48).
The following are a few worksheets that cover a wide range of social skills and considerations and, when practiced, help increase self-knowledge and social awareness.
How to Support Your Friends
Friends are a crucial part of your social network. While they can provide valuable support mechanisms for you, you must equally be there for them when they need your help (Wendler, 2020).
The How to Support Your Friends worksheet examines a situation when a friend needed your support.
- How did you respond?
- How can you help them in the long term?
- How can you practice self-care?
When providing support, it is essential that you (Wendler, 2020):
- Remain present
- Remember, this is not about you
- Offer support rather than solutions
- Accept their feelings, rather than tell them how to feel
- Try not to panic
Healthy Relationships involve both giving and receiving, and an awareness and consideration of everyone’s needs.
High- and Low-Energy Social Skills
Social skills involve a great deal of nonverbal communication, such as how we stand, how loud we speak, and even the way we tilt our heads.
Such cues can provide physical indicators of empathy and help show whether we are currently high or low in energy (Wendler, 2020).
One vital way to improve our social skills is to match our energy with our partner’s or the group we find ourselves in. For example, if we enter a meeting and everyone is excited about a new product launch, low energy may mean we fail to appear part of the team.
The High- and Low-Energy Social Skills worksheet helps us consider the energy exhibited by ourselves and others and whether we match those around us.
Think of a time when a friend, colleague, partner, or group was high in energy. How did you respond? High energy or low energy?
If you matched their energy, it showed empathy and most likely helped you mix and improve your social skills.
Note that there will be times when your circumstances or events prevent you from energy matching, and it is important to practice self-care.
Developing Social Skills: 3 Worksheets for Children
Developing social skills and learning how to interact with the environment effectively are crucial for living a fulfilling and happy life (Matson, 2018).
The following worksheets are helpful exercises for children learning to be more socially adept and communicate successfully.
Self-Awareness for Children
Becoming more self-aware involves recognizing feelings, thoughts, and their impact on behavior (Fleming, 2021). Developing self-awareness can help children in social settings interact and be sure their needs are not overlooked.
The Self-Awareness for Children worksheet practices self-awareness and self-knowledge by asking the child (or group of children) a series of questions regarding how they are feeling and what they are thinking.
Becoming more self-aware can increase the child’s empathy and understanding of their own and others’ hopes, wishes, and needs.
Responsible Decision-Making for Children
Making a decision can be stressful, and not making one can be worse. Our choices often have social implications, building or damaging relationships, so they need to be taken carefully (Peters, 2018).
The Responsible Decision-Making for Children worksheet prompts the child to reflect on the likely social implications of their choices and how to show respect to themselves and others.
The important decisions we make can have far-reaching impacts. We should give ourselves time to gather information, consider the options and their impact, and seek the help needed.
Good Choices – Bad Choices for kids
When children have friends making bad choices that are potentially detrimental to themselves and the social groups around them, it can be all too easy to follow suit (Daniels & Rabar, 2019).
The Good Choices – Bad Choices worksheet can help children reflect on their friends’ poor decisions and how to react to the social pressure and the situation.
We all make mistakes, especially in social situations. It is essential to reflect and learn from what we do and, in the future, behave in ways more in line with our values.
4 Best Activities for Children and Teenagers
Activities where children visualize, role-play, or work through social interactions and engagements can develop their understanding, awareness, self-confidence, and self-knowledge.
And “like any other skill, practice makes perfect” (Daniels & Rabar, 2019, p. 13).
The following activities can be adjusted according to the child’s age and should include appropriate support and supervision (modified from Daniels & Rabar, 2019):
- Going blindfolded
A lack of social skills can feel like walking around blindfolded. Find somewhere safe where the child feels comfortable. Blindfold them and ask them to attempt to make their way toward the door.
Once finished, tell them that, as with walking blindfolded, you may find you bump into things, sometimes feel lost, and need a little help as you develop your social skills.
- People watching
Creating narratives can help make sense of a complex social environment.
Find a safe location where you can watch people and their lives drift by (perhaps a cafe or transit station). Ask the child to choose a person or couple and make up a story about their lives, including where they are going and why.
Ask the child to say what they saw and heard that helped them make up the story.
- Questions to start conversations
Striking up conversations with people they don’t know can be difficult for children (and adults too).
Sit with the child and write down a list of questions that could be helpful when starting conversations in various situations, for example:
Do you have any pets? What are their names?
How was your weekend? What did you do?
Then practice the questions and conversation building in pairs.
- Throwing it back
It is useful to learn how to keep a conversation going. Explain to the child that one of the easiest ways to continue a conversation is when someone asks you a question, answer it, and then throw another one back. It’s like catching and throwing a ball.
Practice making up situations, questions, and answers in pairs.
For example:
What are you up to over the weekend?
I am going swimming.
What about you?
It’s a simple trick and can lead to the next point for discussion.
Helpful Worksheets for Students
School can be a great place to make friends and learn valuable social skills.
But it takes practice, and mistakes are inevitable.
The following two worksheets consider what friendship means to the individual and help clarify their self-concept.
What Does Friendship Mean to Me?
Use the What Does Friendship Mean to Me? worksheet to reflect on why friendship is so important to the individual. While increasing feelings of relatedness and closeness, understanding friendship can also help clarify social interactions and keep individual needs in mind.
Use this awareness to appreciate your friends and recognize when people are not showing you friendship.
Self-Concept for Conversations
Conversation is easier when you can speak clearly about who you are.
Use the Self-Concept for Conversations worksheet to summarize how you think about yourself.
An explicit self-concept will make it easier to introduce yourself in social situations.
Revise the answers before meeting others in a social environment. They can lead to further conversations.
3 CBT Worksheets to Use With Clients
Adopting the right mindset is crucial for dealing with anxiety, shyness, and the lack of confidence that causes social discomfort (MacLeod, 2018).
It’s important to recognize that it is not always the situation that causes the problem, but our beliefs regarding that situation.
The following worksheets provide three valuable techniques for considering and replacing unhelpful thinking:
- ABC Functional Analysis
By understanding both the causes and the effects of your client’s behavior, you can help them recognize social behavior standing in the way of their goals. - Coping Styles Formulation
When confronted with challenging social situations, we sometimes attempt to escape or put up defenses.
Understanding the problem and the existing coping style makes it possible to develop more adaptive coping strategies. - Graded Exposure Therapy
Social situations can lead to fear and avoidance. Safe environments can be created to manage exposure and learn how to become more comfortable in difficult situations.
Group Counseling Activities
Sharing our thoughts, fears, and anxieties in a group setting can be freeing, especially when we recognize that they are familiar to all.
Sharing our insecurities
Discussing real or imagined socially awkward or difficult situations can help us understand our own and others’ fears and reflect on our coping strategies.
Within the group, discuss the following points and their impact (modified from MacLeod, 2018):
- Accept that nervousness comes from valued goals
Discomfort can be put in perspective and may even be worthwhile if pursuing something meaningful.
- Accept that it’s okay to show what you are experiencing
When we stop worrying whether we appear nervous or scared, anxiety loosens its grip. - Tell people when you feel shy or insecure
Most people have been through similar experiences. Casually share your concerns and move on. - Recognize that it’s normal to get nervous
There is nothing wrong with you. As humans, we are set up to have these feelings. Permit yourself to have them.
Ask the group to share experiences to normalize their insecurities.
Coping with social anxiety
A group setting is a great place to discuss complex social situations that cause anxiety and shyness. Individuals can share helpful strategies they adopt to manage difficult thoughts and feelings.
Discuss within the group how the following might help (modified from MacLeod, 2018):
- Riding out the symptoms
We don’t always need to escape or avoid the situation. For example, leading up to a presentation, nervousness may boost your energy and invigorate what you share.
- Challenging your thinking
Question whether the thinking that is feeding your anxiety is valid or helpful. Challenging your thoughts can reduce their effect. - Distracting yourself
Find something else to focus on. Thinking through the plot of a favorite film, playing through a cherished piece of music in your head, or thinking about your children can take the focus off what is causing you upset and give you time to become calm. - Breathing exercises
Breathing exercises where you breathe out more slowly than you breathe in can engage the parasympathetic system and settle your mind and body (Nestor, 2020). Take a few slow, deep breaths. Make the out-breath slow through pursed lips if it helps.
Ask the group to share other communication techniques that help them through social situations.
Telling a good story
Sharing personal stories can be a great way to build connections with the people you meet. However, start small.
Begin with a semi-personal story and see how they react (Wendler, 2020).
Daniel Wendler (2020) suggests making the story enjoyable by sharing what was going on in your head at the time, rather than simply the facts. It will help the listener experience the narrative and build a connection with you.
Once finished, rather than continue by telling another story, share the spotlight so that everyone gets a turn.
The Telling a Good Story worksheet can help you think about the stories you could share in a social situation and identify the points to cover. Practice them with a partner or in front of the group and ask for their open and honest feedback. Not only is this practice helpful, but it provides valuable insight into what works well and what doesn’t.
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A Look at Social Skills Training in the Workplace
Gaining valuable emotional awareness can help us relate to others personally and professionally.
While emotional intelligence training benefits social skills in general, it is particularly valuable in the workplace (Goleman, 2018).
Here are some particularly relevant training options:
- Emotional Intelligence Masterclass©
Our masterclass is a complete, six-module emotional intelligence training template for helping professionals to understand and use their emotions in life-enriching ways. This masterclass will provide you with all the tools, materials, and knowledge required to make an impactful difference. - EI Masterclass: Embodied Emotional Intelligence
Beyond EI teaches the principles behind emotional intelligence and how to practice them. You will learn to become more aware of what provides meaning in your own life while regaining control.
Resources From PositivePsychology.com
Improving social skills makes it possible to strengthen communication with friends, family, and colleagues and build stronger, enduring relationships.
Why not download our free emotional intelligence tool pack and try out the powerful tools contained within? Some examples include:
- Building Emotional Awareness
Use this valuable script and audio to foster your emotional intelligence by mindfully attending to current emotional states. - Decoding Emotions by Analyzing Speech, Body, and Face
Accurately perceiving and understanding people’s emotions is a core component of emotional intelligence.
Other free resources include:
- Conflict Resolution Checklist
This 10-item checklist is a valuable method for ensuring conflict is resolved. - TRAPS to Avoid and TIPS for Success
Adopt these helpful tips to avoid closed thinking and put in place productive, positive, and receptive communication
More extensive versions of the following tools are available with a subscription to the Positive Psychology Toolkit©, but they are described briefly below:
- Small Talk to Build Connection
This tool helps people connect through practicing small talk with people they don’t yet know.
Many of us opt to keep to ourselves rather than strike up a conversation with a stranger, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
-
- Step one – Identify the reasons for avoiding small talk.
- Step two – Choose a context for engaging in small talk.
- Step three – Find a topic for making the connection.
- Step four – Find a time and a place to practice the approach.
The final stage is to evaluate the success of the approach.
- Team Branding
Perceived, rather than actual, team branding is crucial for effective team performance.
We can foster team interactions by creating team identity.
-
- Step one – In small groups, identify the team’s strengths.
- Step two – Gather all the responses into cohesive headings.
- Step three – Assign each small group a task such as creating a team name, slogan, mission statement, etc.
- Step four – Have each team present their findings.
Reflect on the new team identity.
A Take-Home Message
Feeling socially uncomfortable – shy, nervous, and awkward – can prevent us from reaching our social and professional potential.
While it is something all of us have faced, we can work through it and build skills for seamless social interactions.
First, we must recognize that we are not likely to remove all of our insecurities. Second, we should remind ourselves that all of us feel a degree of discomfort at times, and it does not have to ruin social engagement.
Importantly, we should remember that social interactions require balance. Taking turns with the spotlight is crucial, and so is focusing on the needs of the parties involved.
We must also consider energy levels, self-awareness, the choices we make, and our self-concept if we are to build lasting, deep relationships with those we meet.
While getting to know new people is not easy, the investment is worthwhile, and practice will make it easier.
This article contains plenty of worksheets and tools to get you started and maintain your journey toward building the social skills to lead the life that is right for you. Good luck.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Relationships Exercises for free.
- Daniels, N., & Rabar, S. (2019). Social skills activities for kids: 50 Fun activities for making friends, talking and listening, and understanding social rules. Rockridge Press.
- Fleming, S. (2021). Know thyself. Basic Books.
- Goleman, D. (2018). The first component of emotional intelligence. In Self-awareness (pp. 1–10). Harvard Business Review Press.
- MacLeod, C. (2018). The social skills guidebook: Manage shyness, improve your conversations, and make friends, without giving up who you are. Author.
- Matson, J. (2018). Handbook of social behavior and skills in children. Springer.
- Nestor, J.
(2020). Breath: The new science of a lost art. Penguin Books. - Peters, S. (2018). The silent guides: Understanding and developing the mind throughout life. Lagom.
- Wendler, D. (2020). Improve your social skills. Author.
What are Adult Social Skills Worksheets? (plus examples) • BUOM
December 9, 2021
While teachers, counselors and therapists can use social skills worksheets to help develop and improve children's social skills and awareness, adults can also benefit from these resources. These worksheets can be used by a wide variety of people with mental health problems or a desire to overcome social problems. Understanding how to use these tools and the people who might benefit from them can help mental health professionals decide whether to encourage their clients to use them. In this article, we'll look at what a social skills worksheet is, discuss how adults can use it, and look at reasons adults can benefit from completing it.
What is a social skills worksheet?
The Social Skills Worksheet is a resource that people with mental disorders can use to develop and use their ability to communicate and interact with others. This worksheet can provide adults with a tool to help them maintain healthy interpersonal relationships and can encourage them to become or stay socially active with friends, family members, or colleagues. Therapists or counselors can use these worksheets when providing support to their clients because they can help them identify a person's problems or strengths with regard to interpersonal communication, how they interact in different social settings, or their ability to empathize with others.
How is the adult social skills worksheet used?
Psychiatric practitioners can use the Social Skills Worksheet for Adult Clients in a variety of ways, depending on individual desires, priorities, and conditions. They can use these tools to explore a person's opinions and feelings or help them confront and overcome certain obstacles in their professional lives or personal relationships.
Adults can also use social skills worksheets to map out positive actions or behaviors that can help them if they are overwhelmed or struggling in a particular social environment.
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Reasons to use social skills worksheets for adults
Psychiatrist practitioners can use social skills worksheets with the support of adult clients for various reasons including:
Practicing Negotiation and Compromise
Social Skills Worksheets can help people with mental illnesses or social and emotional conditions practice and understand interactions that involve negotiation and compromise. The ability to recognize when a difficult situation requires compromise can help adults in a variety of personal and professional situations and enable them to understand the needs, preferences, or desires of others.
Social skills worksheets can help people as they assess a situation, understand whether they agree with the person or group they are talking to, and evaluate the costs and benefits of various outcomes or decisions.
This can help them understand their own feelings about the situation and how they compare and differ from the feelings and opinions of others.
Building Self-Esteem
Social skills worksheets can encourage adults to build their self-esteem and support them as they navigate their thoughts or feelings about themselves. These tools can lead them to consider the qualities or attributes they admire in a friend or family member and then highlight their own traits that they like and value. People can also list long-term and short-term goals or milestones they hope to achieve so they can mark their accomplishments in the coming days, weeks, or months.
These resources can also help them identify qualities in a friend, partner, or person that they do not value and how to recognize such behavior in others or change it if they see themselves exhibiting those qualities. It can help an adult to better understand self-esteem and increase self-esteem, which will allow him to feel confident in various social interactions.
Making and maintaining friendships
Adults with mental health problems or conditions can use social skills worksheets to help them build and maintain friendships with others and allow them to document their feelings as they interact with people in their lives . This can help them plan the conversations or topics they want to discuss with their friends and allow them to consider their choices before engaging.
If they encounter conflict with their friends, colleagues, or peers, adults can also use the Social Skills Chart to identify and describe their feelings in private or with a mental health professional. It can also help adults learn to take turns sharing ideas or sayings in conversation, which can help them communicate productively and naturally with their friends.
Understanding nonverbal cues and body language
In various social interactions, it may be important for adults not only to understand what others say verbally, but also to understand what they express with their non-verbal gestures and body language.
This skill can help people feel more comfortable around others and have a deeper understanding of situations or circumstances.
Some social skills worksheets may encourage adults to notice certain non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions, body position, and tone of voice, and to document what the person is showing through these gestures. This allows the person to understand the other person's feelings and identify the situation that may have prompted the other person to experience those emotions.
Examples of social skills worksheets
Social skills worksheets can vary depending on their purpose, the people who use them, and the practitioner who administers them. Here are some examples of social skills worksheets you can consider:
Example 1: Practice and Skill Development: Negotiation and Compromise
ideas. What is your opinion and what is theirs?
2. What idea or issue do you disagree with, and how does it affect you?
3. How does this idea or problem affect the other person?
4.
Ask the other person what they think of the situation and write down their response.
5. See if there is an alternative that you both agree on. What does this alternative include and how will it affect you and the other person?
Example 2: Practice and Skill Development: Self-expression
1. What situations, interactions, or environments make you feel excited, motivated, and inspired? What do you do when you feel this way and how do you express those emotions?
2. What situations, interactions or environments make you anxious or nervous? What can you do to support yourself in such situations?
3. What situations, interactions, or environments make you angry or frustrated? How can you express your anger or frustration without negatively influencing yourself or others?
4. What situations, interactions, or environments make you sad? How can you console yourself and acknowledge these feelings when they arise?
5. What situations, interactions or environments make you afraid? What do these feelings tell you about the situation and what can you do to feel safe and comfortable?
Example 3: Practice and Skill Development: Self-Assessment
1.
Make a list of your accomplishments and describe what you did to reach those milestones.
2. Make a list of your skills and talents and describe how you feel when you display these qualities.
3. List your goals and aspirations and describe how they can contribute to your personal and professional growth.
4. List three of your favorite qualities in friends, partners, or family members. Consider why you value these qualities and how this person is a positive influence on you.
5. List three of your favorite qualities about yourself. Think about why you value these qualities and how they help you be a positive influence on others.
Tips for Using the Adult Social Skills Worksheet
Here is a list of tips to keep in mind when administering or using the Adult Social Skills Worksheet:
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Consider unique human needs: People with the same mental illness or condition may have different needs and unique personality traits. This means that it can be helpful for practitioners to consider an individual's social skills, life experiences, and personal relationships when deciding whether to use the Adult Social Skills Worksheet.
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Be patient: Depending on the individual's comfort level and self-awareness, some social skills worksheets may seem difficult, so it is important for practicing psychiatrists to remain patient with the patients they support. They may find it helpful to allow the person to complete the worksheet in private, or to provide verbal responses to prompts.
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Give people alternatives: If a person is resistant to completing a worksheet or answering a specific question, give them alternatives. This may include skipping a certain prompt and returning to it in the future, or discussing your ideas and feelings before writing them down on a piece of paper.
Social skills of preschoolers - the development of social skills in children
The development of social skills is a necessary point of education. A child with a high degree of socialization will quickly get used to kindergarten, school, any new team; in the future will easily find a job.
Social skills have a positive effect on interpersonal relationships - friendship, the ability to cooperate.
Understand what social skills are.
What are social skills and why develop them?
Social skills - a group of skills, abilities that are formed during the interaction of a person with society and affect the quality of communication with people.
Man is a social being: all our talents and aspirations are realized thanks to other members of the group. Others evaluate our actions, approve or condemn our behavior. It is difficult to reach the pinnacle of self-actualization alone.
This is why social skills are important. They should be developed from early childhood and honed throughout life.
Social skills are a reflection of the child's emotional intelligence, to which educators and teachers assign an important role in the process of personality development. Without this group of skills, a smart child will not be able to apply the acquired knowledge in practice: it is not enough to create something outstanding, you need to be able to correctly convey thoughts to the public.
Sometimes people mistakenly believe that social skills relate exclusively to the topic of communication, communication. In fact, skills include many multidirectional aspects: an adequate perception of one's own individuality, the ability to empathize, work in a team, etc.
Why do we need social skills?
- Regulate the area of interpersonal relationships: the child easily makes new friends, finds like-minded people.
- Minimize psychological stress: children with developed social skills quickly adapt, do not feel sad due to changes in external circumstances.
- They form an adequate self-esteem from childhood, which positively affects life achievements and development in adulthood.
- Social skills cannot be separated from building a successful career: the best specialists must not only understand the profession, but also have high emotional intelligence.
Development of social skills in a child
Social skills need to be developed from preschool age, but older children and even teenagers may well learn to interact with the world.
It is recommended to pay attention to areas of life that bring discomfort to the child, significantly complicate everyday life.
- Friends, interesting interlocutors: the kid does not know how to join the team, he prefers to sit in the corner while the others are playing.
- Verbal difficulties. The child does not understand the rules of conversation, is poorly versed in the formulas of etiquette (when you need to say hello, say goodbye, offer help).
- Problems with the non-verbal side of communication. Such a baby does not recognize the shades of emotions, it is difficult to understand how others relate to him. Cannot "read" faces and gestures.
- Does not know the measure in expressing a point of view: too passive or, conversely, aggressive.
- The child bullies classmates (participates in bullying) or is a victim.
In case of severe moral trauma, one should consult a psychologist: for example, school bullying is a complex problem that children are not able to cope with on their own.
The involvement of parents and teachers is required.
In other cases, family members may well be able to help the child develop social skills.
What are the general recommendations?
1. Be patient
Don't push your child to get the job done. Let them take the initiative: for example, do not rush to help during school gatherings, let the baby work on the problem on his own. The same goes for lessons and other activities.
2. Support undertakings
Children's dreams seem trifling to adults, but the initiative turns into a habit over the years and helps to discover new projects, meet people, and experiment.
3. Criticize the right way
When speaking negatively, remember the golden rule of criticism: you need to analyze the work, highlighting both positive and negative aspects in a polite manner. Commenting on the specific actions of the child, and not his personality or appearance - this will lead to problems with self-esteem.
4. The right to choose
It is important for children to feel that their voice is taken into account and influences the course of events. Invite your child to personally choose clothes, books, cartoons. Ask about ideas, plans: “We are going to have a rest together at the weekend. What are your suggestions?
5. Personal space
Make sure that the baby has a place where he can be alone and take a break from talking. Personal things should not be touched: rearrange without prior discussion, read correspondence with friends, check pockets, etc.
Children, noticing the respectful attitude of adults, quickly begin to pay in the same coin; the atmosphere in the family becomes warm and trusting.
What social skills should be developed in a child?
Let's dwell on the main qualities and skills, the development of which is worth paying attention to.
1. The ability to ask, accept and give help
Without the ability to ask for help, the child will deprive himself of valuable advice; the lack of the ability to accept help will lead to losses, and the inability to provide help will make the baby self-centered.
- Let the child help those in need: for example, a lagging classmate.
- Explain to your child that getting help from friends and teachers is not a shame.
- Show by personal example that mutual help enriches experience: tell how you exchange advice with colleagues, friends.
2. The ability to conduct a conversation and get the right information
Being a good conversationalist is difficult, but the skill is honed over time and brings a lot of benefits.
- Prompt your child for dialogue development options: for example, you can start a conversation with an appropriate question, a request for help.
- Do not leave the child in the role of a silent listener: when discussing pressing issues at home, ask the opinion of the baby.
- Support children's public speaking: reports at school, performances, funny stories surrounded by loved ones will add confidence.
3. Empathy
Empathy is the ability to recognize the emotions of others, put yourself in the place of another person, empathize.
This ability will make the child humane, prudent. How can it be developed?
- Start by recognizing the child's feelings - it is useless to listen to people if the person does not feel personal experiences. Ask your baby: “How do you feel after a quarrel with friends?”, “Do you want to relax today?”
- After conflicts with classmates, ask your child how the children with whom the quarrel may feel now.
- While watching cartoons, reading books, pay your child's attention to the emotional state of the characters.
4. Ability to work in a team
Many children can easily cope with tasks alone, but this is not a reason to refuse to work in a team. It gives the opportunity to exchange ideas and experience, delegate tasks, achieve goals faster and more efficiently.
- If the child does not communicate with members of the team, try to introduce him to another social group: for example, the lack of communication with classmates can be compensated by a circle of interests, where the child will feel calmer.
- Make the family a friendly team in which the child has his own "duties": for example, do housework, remind parents of upcoming events. Any activity related to the well-being of other family members will do.
5. Respect for personal boundaries
The absence of an obsessive desire to interfere in other people's lives is a valuable skill that helps to win people's sympathy.
- Respect the child's personal boundaries: do not enter the nursery without warning, do not rummage through personal belongings and correspondence, if the matter does not concern the life and safety of the baby.
- If the child violates other people's boundaries (takes toys without permission, asks uncomfortable questions), talk about it in private.
6. Ability to overcome conflict situations
It is difficult to imagine our life without conflicts. The task of the child is to learn how to culturally enter into a discussion, defend his point of view, and not be led by the provocations of his interlocutors.
- Talk about problems calmly, without raising your voice. Do not put pressure on the child with parental authority unnecessarily: the child is a separate person who has the right to an opinion.
- Do not judge people for views that differ from those of your family but do not affect your well-being. Show your child that the world is very different.
- You can demonstrate to children the basics of a civilized dispute, explain what arguments are, etc. It is advisable to teach this child in kindergarten.
7. Self-confidence
Stable and adequate self-esteem is a quality that not all adults possess.
It is formed under the influence of many factors: relationships between parents, the role of the child in the family circle, the characteristics of the environment that surrounded the child in early childhood.
It is important that the child does not grow up to be either a narcissistic narcissist with fragile self-esteem, or an overly shy person.
