Social skills groups activities

20 Evidence-Based Social Skills Activities and Games for Kids

Oct 14 2020

Positive Action Staff

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SEL Articles

Activities and games for socialization are a great way for your child to learn how to behave around their peers, no matter if he is a toddler, preschooler or if he just started kindergarten. Games can teach skills like taking turns, managing emotions, and reading body language.

Use these evidence-based social skills activities to help your child build their social behaviors and learn how their actions affect others. With these games, they can become more independent and maintain healthy relationships throughout their lives.

1. Staring Contest

Many children have trouble maintaining eye contact in conversation. A staring contest can help kids make and keep eye contact in a way that allows them to focus on that task, rather than trying to communicate simultaneously.

If your child still feels uncomfortable, you can start smaller. Place a sticker on your forehead for them to look at and then build toward having a conversation.

2. Roll the Ball

It’s never too early to start building social skills, and a game of roll the ball suits children as young as toddlers. Kids take turns rolling a ball back and forth between them, laying the foundation for other social skills.

Kids learn to carry this skill into taking turns in conversation or when doing joint activities. They also learn self-control by aiming the ball toward their friend and rolling it hard enough to reach them yet with limited force.

3. Virtual Playtime

Sometimes, your child can’t have play dates in person, but they can still spend time together over video chat and other online spaces. Video chats help kids make eye contact by looking at their friend on the screen.

Learning to adapt to new situations becomes a valuable trait, whether with social distancing or in their future workplace. Coming up with new ways to spend time together increases problem-solving abilities, which adds to a set of vital social skills.

4. Emotion Charades

Emotion charades involves writing different emotions on strips of paper. Your child picks one out of a hat or bucket. Then, they must try to act out that emotion.

Emotion charades can help children learn to recognize emotions using facial and body cues. You can even adapt social skills activities like this to create a game similar to Pictionary, where children draw the emotion.

By depicting and acting out emotional expressions and reactions in social skills activities, children learn emotion management, which plays an important role in creating positive relationships and communicating feelings.

5. Expression Mimicking Games

When you play this game with your child, you're teaching social skills with expressions. Mimicking your expressions allows your child to understand what certain expressions mean and recognize them when others make them in real conversations.

When kids with social challenges learn to read facial expressions, they become more comfortable in situations involving them.

6. Topic Game

You can play several variations of the topic game, but the most common one involves choosing a topic and naming things that fit into that category using each letter of the alphabet. For example, if you choose animals as the topic, you might come up with:

A: Aardvark
B: Baboon
C: Chicken

The topic game teaches kids to stick to one subject and follow directions until they complete the activity. It also helps them make connections and get creative with letters that have fewer options.

7. Step Into Conversation

Step Into Conversation is a card game made for children with autism. The game presents structured social skills activities, like starting a conversation and talking about specific subjects based on cards.

The game helps kids learn how to talk to others appropriately and carry a conversation with perspective and empathy. It teaches good manners and self-control by showing them how to politely enter a conversation, when to talk, and when to listen.

By using socialization games like this one, you give structure to conversations to develop the social skills necessary to handle different situations in their daily life.

8. Improvisational Stories

Many children tell stories even outside of intentional social skills activities. With improvisational stories, you add another challenge that requires them to collaborate and create a narrative without thinking about it beforehand.

For this activity, place cards with pictures or words face down. The child picks three of these cards, and they must include these objects or topics in the story they tell. The game ends when all the cards are gone, or the kids reach the end of their story.

You can use this activity as a multiplayer game where children take turns adding to the story and building on each other’s ideas, or one child can tell you their own story.

9. Name Game

With this simple game, kids roll or toss a ball to someone after they call out their name. Social skills activities like this one work well for helping even toddlers learn their peers’ names. It shows that they are attentive to others, and it’s a step toward getting to know other people.

10. Simon Says

Simon Says builds social skills for kids' self-control, listening, and impulse control as they copy their peers' movements and follow instructions. It also helps keep the attention on the game and rewards good behavior for those who follow the rules throughout the game.

11. Rhythm Games

You can incorporate rhythm games as a social skills activity both at home and in the classroom. These music-making games let your child be creative while following directions and recognizing patterns.

A 2010 study by Kirschner and Tomasello shows that joint music-making helps social behavior. In a game where children must “wake the frogs” with music, the researchers found that kids who followed the rules by making music were more likely to help others who tried waking the frogs with non-musical means.

12. Playing with Characters

These social skills activities involve tapping into your child’s natural tendency to play. Using stuffed animals or dolls, you can interact with your child through the toys.

Having conversations through toys teaches kids to recognize behaviors and communicate their feelings. They practice their social skills through the toys in an imaginary, low-risk environment, without worrying about the toys’ hurt feelings.

13. Play Pretend

Kids will typically create a scenario in which they pretend to be someone or something else. For example, they might play house and take on the roles of parents, become a doctor, veterinarian, teacher, or cashier. Each of these situations allows them to explore different social skills activities.

As they pretend to parent another child, for instance, they must learn to recognize and respond to emotions, deescalate situations, and adapt to new situations.

14. Token Stack

You can adapt token stack from board games like checkers to create social skills activities that teach children how to have a considerate conversation. Every time the child speaks and responds appropriately, they add another token to their stack.

They face the challenge of trying to stack their tokens as high as possible while taking turns speaking. This activity makes them focus on having a calm conversation and giving thoughtful responses to questions and statements.

15. Decision-Making Games

Social skills activities like decision-making games come in many forms. By using strategy games or activities as simple as sorting and matching, your child learns persistence, thoughtfulness, and cooperation with others.

These games help kids with indecision, as they ask the child to make a choice, even if it’s not right the first time. It demonstrates low-risk consequences and encourages them to try again if they make a mistake.

16. Building Game

When children work together to build something, like a tower using blocks, they must communicate, take turns, and understand each other to bring their creation to life.

Kids will work together to come up with a method to build their item. When they apply it, they learn to try again if the creation falls and celebrate each other’s unique abilities when they finish the project successfully.

17. Community Gardening

Community gardening works differently than other social skills activities in that it teaches children to nurture a living thing.

Gardening with others increases social competence by having your child take care of something and learn responsibility, as they cannot neglect their plants. This activity also gets kids outdoor and can help calm them.

18. Team Sports

Children can participate in team sports through their school, on a recreational team, or even play with friends in their backyard. Team sports show kids how to work together toward a common goal and keep their focus on the game.

They also learn to recognize emotions, like when someone gets hurt or scores a goal, and react appropriately when they win or lose.

19. Productive Debate

A productive debate works well for older kids to learn how to manage emotions and work on positive expression, even in challenging situations. They learn how to have difficult conversations calmly, without turning them into an argument or trying to insult the other person.

People who can debate and listen to their opponent develop more of the skills needed to become leaders in the classroom and workplace.

20. Scavenger Hunts

During scavenger hunts, children work together to find objects or get a prize at the end of the activity. By working toward their goal, they learn teamwork, organization, and positive decision-making. They can choose to split up, move as a group, and collaborate to reach the end of the game.

They also get rewarded for cooperating. These activities help them with creative problem-solving abilities by making up clues for other players to solve.

What’s Next?

Using evidence-based social skills activities and games helps your child build social skills while doing something they enjoy. You can adapt any of these activities to something that engages your child and allows them to get creative with their socialization.

However, activities and games can only go so far. The Positive Action social skills curriculum is designed to work in tandem with activities like these and more to help your child identify their self-concept and shift this introspection to their social interactions. We feel social skills start within.

Explore our sample lessons for even more ways to encourage your child’s social-emotional learning, or contact us to find out how our program can improve your child’s social skills and have fun doing it today!

Try These 5 Great Social Skills Activities for Students & Groups

Working as a school psychologist in the public school system for many years, I sometimes heard school counselors asking for advice about which social skills activities they should do with their students

Children in the group often had difficulty with skills such as:

listening
waiting their turn in conversation
staying on topic
sharing materials
understanding another person’s feelings
getting along with others
resolving conflict
appropriately expressing their own feelings

This article gives five suggestions for social skills activities for students and groups.

You may think these activities are more appropriate for elementary-age students but I think they can really be adapted for younger and older groups.

Activities can also be modified for a one-on-one situation such as parent/child or counselor/student.

What the research says about social skills instruction: Phillip C. Kendall, Professor of Psychology, reported the positive effects of using modeling and role playing, and teaching self-evaluation when teaching social skills.
Further research, such as Social Skills Training for Teaching Replacement Behaviors: Remediating Acquisition Deficits in At-Risk Students, confirms the benefits of intense social skills instruction.

Interactive Social Skills Books for Kids

5

Great Social Skills Activities for Students

1. Use engaging conversation, demonstration, role-play and/or visuals to teach students what social skills are and why we need to use them.

See an example of social skills below:

When first introducing kids to a social skills group it is a good idea to have them understand what social skills are and why they are important.

As a starting activity, write down different social skills (such as the ones from the list above) on individual slips of paper and put them in a bowl, hat, etc.

Have your students sit in a circle and pass around the slips of paper, taking turns pulling them out of the bowl one at a time.

When the student pulls the slip of paper from the bowl, ask them to say what the social skill means, have them give an example, and/or ask them to tell the rest of the group why that skill is important.

Give as much guidance and support as your students need to answer the questions. You may want to go first, to show the students how to do this activity.

Here is an example:

If a student picked “sharing materials” she could say “That means to let someone use something that you are using.

For example, if I am coloring with crayons I can let my friend borrow my crayons and color with me. Sharing is important because it shows others that you care about how they feel. Part of being a good friend is sharing.”

You could even have students act out the skills. So in this example, you can have one of your students pick materials to share with the other members of the group.

You can also let students create their own drawings of the skill you are talking about. To give you an idea of what I mean, below is a drawing of sharing:

Depending on the students’ skill and age level, frustration tolerance, and ability to sustain attention, you can do all of the suggestions I mentioned in this activity or just one.

You can break this into several lessons by only doing a few social skills at a time.

You also might want to add some skills that are not on the list such as showing empathy, staying on topic in conversation, and using manners.

Recommended Article: 15 Behavior Strategies for Children on the Autism Spectrum

2.

Use games and fun activities to practice sharing, turn-taking, listening, following directions, encouraging others, and being polite.

In the video below, the therapist uses bubbles as the prop. Other objects can be used to tailor this activity to students of different ages.

Imagine implementing this same lesson but using activities such as shooting a basketball in a net, playing with a remote control car, doing an activity on the computer, etc.

Recommended Article: 8 Fun Activities to Practice Social Skills with Your Child

3. Use conversation starters to create a dialogue between students or between counselor and student.

Then the youth is supposed to ask another person a question related to the topic they pick, and the other person is to ask a related question back.

This activity allows students to practice listening, taking turns in conversation, staying on topic, and expressing interest in another person’s thoughts, ideas, and/or life. See examples in the video below.

The counselor in the video below encourages the students to pick a topic from a slip of paper in a cup (e.g., friendship, fears, favorite activities, etc..)

4. Teach what is means to be a friend.

This next video gives you great ideas for how to talk to children about what it means to be a friend.

After you show the video, have your students:

tell you what they learned about being a friend
draw a picture that shows someone being a friend to another person
and/or practice one of the skills in the video

For example, this video mentions being a good listener and sharing as two of the things good friends do, so as part of the lesson have your students practice listening to each other and/or sharing items.

Talk to your students about what it means to be an active listener (e.g., looking in the direction of the person who is talking, waiting your turn to speak, responding to what the person said, trying to understand how the other person might be feeling, etc.).

The “What it means to be a friend” lesson could be a great segue into the lessons above which hone in on sharing skills and conversation skills.

Related Article: How to End Bullying Part 1: 19 Tips for Parents and Teachers

5. Practice complimenting each other.

Speaking of being a good friend, complimenting others (a great friendship skill) is another nice activity to do with your group.

Set the expectations from the beginning that only kind words and respect for each other is allowed in the group.

For this activity, you could go around in a circle and have each student say something nice about someone else in the group.

To make sure everyone gets a turn to be complimented, put people’s names on slips of paper in the bowl and have them pass it around taking turns pulling out names.

This activity will get easier as the students get to know each other better.

If the students just met and are not sure what to say about each other, allow them to say something nice about a family member or friend outside of the group.

As the group gets to know each other, the compliments should be about the group members.

Side Note: To teach self-evaluation, discuss how you and your student(s)/client(s) did during each activity. Give specific feedback about what went well and discuss areas that need improvement.

Let your clients share their own thoughts and perceptions about how they did during the activity. Encourage your clients to think about their own behavior when they are involved in similar real-life scenarios.

You may be interested in Model Me Kids.

Model Me Kids produces dozens of videos to teach/model social skills that can help children develop better relationships.

Video modeling is a research-based practice. You can view more of the Model Me Kids Video Program here. Below is a sample video.

Recommended: Become a Certified Self-Esteem Coach for Children

Education and Behavior – Keeping Us on the Same Page for Kids!

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.

Let's figure out 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.

That 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 play.
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 making negative comments, remember the golden rule of criticism: analyze the work, highlighting both positive and negative sides in a polite way. 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 provide 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 a relevant 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: presentations 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 unannounced, 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.

Discuss problems that arise 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. How can you help your child find balance?

Praise your child for personal progress: to receive a compliment from parents, it is not necessary to win prizes in school competitions. The zeal of the baby, the interest shown and the stamina also deserve praise.
Explain, remind the children that initially they are worthy of respect and love, like all people around.

Social skills will help in many areas of life: in studies, hobbies, friendships, building a reputation in a team. The main thing is to encourage and support children at all stages.

Emotional intelligence for children

Introducing children to the types of emotions, how to manage them and how to express themselves in teamwork, through situational games

learn more

Social skills and successful learning

garden, parents hope that he will learn to read and write. But before focusing on acquiring academic knowledge, there are many other skills that he needs to master. Research shows that the most important skills to teach children at this age are social skills: cooperation, self-control, confidence, self-reliance, curiosity, empathy, and communication.

In the first months of the school year, educators have the most difficulties with children who have behavioral problems and insufficiently developed attention. In fact, everything is simple: if a child does not know how to keep a queue, listen and sit quietly in a group, how can he learn the educational material? That is why at the beginning of the year so much time is devoted to learning and developing the basic social skills of babies.

Fortunately, the previous experience of social interaction, both at home and in the younger groups of the kindergarten, helps the child to adapt to the changes that have occurred with the team after the summer vacation period. As soon as the kid has mastered the basic skills of social interaction and behavior in a group at a sufficient level, he will be ready to focus on the educational material. That is, a child will be able to gain more knowledge if the approach to the development of his social, emotional and cognitive (academic) skills is maximally balanced by his parents and teachers of preschool education.

Recent brain development research has shown that a child's ability to interact with other children, control and express their feelings, and solve basic tasks independently is as important to academic success as academic skills. The pathways in the brain necessary for successful learning are developed through positive interaction with other people! Caregivers use this data to help children build relationships with each other, share and care, listen and speak in groups, and feel confident to take on new challenges.

Beginning Basic Skills

Here are some examples of what good teachers set at the beginning of the school year in senior or kindergarten. Parents can adapt them in their family and help the child develop in this direction, being in the comfortable conditions of their own family and at home.

Self-confidence and self-esteem: is one of the first skills that caregivers focus on developing. It is important to instill in the child a positive feeling about himself - himself as a person and a participant in social interactions. This is a skill that will not lose its value throughout the child's life and will help him feel capable and skillful both now and in future studies.
Collaboration: games, stories and songs help your child learn to work with other children - not an easy task at this age! Collaboration for a baby is the ability to empathize and get along with other people.
Curiosity: Perhaps one of the most important skills a child needs to develop at this stage is a thirst for learning. The caregiver can use a wide range of interesting materials and ideas to engage your child's natural curiosity. Recent studies show that new or unusual activities and materials (compared to already familiar ones) engage the brain more, forcing it to pay close attention to the information offered.
Communication: Expressing yourself and your thoughts, feelings and knowledge about the world is one of your child's key skills. It underlies all reading, writing, math, and science skills. If a child can confidently express his thought or opinion, he becomes more open to learning and developing thinking.

How Parents Can Help Develop These Skills

Help your child develop critical social and emotional skills by connecting with kindergarten friends in your home setting. Ask the kid who he would like to invite to visit to play. It is often easier for children to build friendships in their own one-on-one space than in a kindergarten. Many educators find that a child who finds it difficult to make friends or interact in a large group is more likely to forge a close bond with a new friend at home. These relationships can then be transferred to the conditions of the kindergarten. Once the child has established a bond with one classmate, it will be easier for him to establish friendships with other children.

The meaning of play

Play is important work for your young child. He grows, learns and explores the world through play. This happens through complex gameplay that encourages him to think, solve problems and use his imagination and fantasy. When a child participates in the game, he has to plan, focus and strive for the goal, using all the basic life and work skills.

In kindergarten, the child should be given opportunities to participate in different play situations throughout the day. The toddler can be introduced to letters and numbers through meaningful drama play, building blocks, and literary or musical works.