Teaching social skills to 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 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 Spotify and 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 our 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.
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.
- Step one – Identify the reasons for avoiding small talk.
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.
Social Skills
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The Psychological Program "Social Skills" is designed to teach social behavior in a safe and friendly environment. At each group meeting, children are offered a role model and activities to practice skills. The approach is based on structured learning, a holistic teaching method that provides a framework for systematic learning of skills, similar to academic ones. The emphasis is on providing alternative behaviors to improve the effectiveness of social interactions. The curriculum is based on "Think Social: A Social Thinking Curriculum for School-Age Students" by Michelle Garcia Winner and includes structured activities to address real socialization issues.
Our social skills training for teenagers has a wide range of benefits. Our social skills groups will help teenagers develop the following qualities:
1) Easier interaction with others
We understand how difficult it can be to interact with peers, especially during adolescence.
Our social skills experts use proven techniques to help your child learn how to initiate and maintain conversations. Groups also help your teen read other people's reactions, body language, and attitudes.
2) A sense of belonging
We devote the necessary time and effort to match each client with a group that matches their personality. Our team provides a safe space for your teenager, where his peers understand and unconditionally accept his feelings and emotions. And also thanks to the skills of how to cope with emotions and stress on their own.
3) Boosting Self-Confidence
At our center, coaches and group members always encourage each other to use their social skills in real life, whether at home, at school or with friends. We always want your teen to be confident in their ability to socialize and make friends. And also how to deal with your emotions in contact with others and one on one with yourself.
Group goals include :
- Making and supporting friends
- Dealing with environmental pressures (peer, teachers and family)
- Using self-control and following instructions.
- Think before you act
- Be able to listen and understand
- Accept rules and consequences
- Set goals
- Solve problems
- Work with feelings
- Acceptance
- Practice in real life situations
- Appropriate behavior modeling
- Communication and feedback
- Activities and games used to teach teamwork and build skills through collaborative activities
If you are interested, please contact your therapist at the Grigory Misyutin Psychological Center or the center administrator at
8 (906) 026-55-33 or leave a request and the curator of the program will contact you.
10 rules for success • Autism is
For many children with autism, relevant and functional social and play skills are a major challenge. In order to ensure that your child succeeds when interacting with peers, it is important to consider the 10 recommendations below.
These rules apply to any social skills training program, but they can also be used by parents themselves to arrange meetings and games with peers in their homes. Of course, each social skills program should be individualized, depending on the strengths and needs of the individual child.
1. Identify the specific social skills you will be working on
The best way to select social skills for a program is to collect “baseline information”. Observe your child's social behavior with adults, with peers, and during independent play with toys in typical situations (for example, in the playground when another child is talking to him via video call, at home with a sibling, during a children's activity, etc.) .
What activities do children enjoy most when they are around other children? Can you think of a very small next goal for each of these activities? For example, teach a child to say “Hi” to other children and respond to their greeting? Or, if a child can say "Hi", how about if they can add the phrase "Let's play" and play the game on their tablet?
If a child can play on the tablet with another child, maybe he needs to learn to wait his turn while the other child plays? If so, how long does he need to learn to wait? Does he need to learn how to say "My turn" before taking the game for himself?
Make sure you understand what behavior is appropriate for your child's developmental level.
It is important to expect from him what is the next step for this child personally, and not what children are “supposed” to do at this age (Chang & Shire, 2019).
Write a list of things the child often does on their own. Then make a list of potential "target skills" that he can be taught. Check the easiest and most basic skills that can be taught first. For example, it can be a greeting, just stay and play next to a peer, throw the ball several times with another child.
Once the simplest social skills are mastered, it will be possible to move on to more complex social skills (Barton et al., 2019). For example, it could be taking turns playing, adding new social phrases, engaging in a partially structured game, or playing by the rules.
Also note which activities and games the child enjoyed the most during the meeting with a peer. Choosing the most enjoyable activities for the child will allow him to develop his motivation for communicating with other children and a positive attitude towards joint games.
For strategies for teaching these minor social skills, it is best to consult a behavioral analyst, if possible. Perhaps, if you do not have the opportunity to hire a behavioral analyst in your area, you can find a behavioral specialist who consults and educates parents online.
Your best bet is to find a professional who can teach you the right strategies (parent education), who takes into account your child's strengths and preferences, and finds small steps to learn social skills that your child can practice regularly. A behavior analyst or other counselor can help you determine which target skills are best suited to your child's developmental level and whether other (prerequisite) skills need to be taught before moving on to teaching your chosen social skills.
2. Teach the target skills first with another adult
Make sure the child has plenty of opportunities to learn the target social skills with an adult. Only then can you arrange a meeting for him with a peer with whom he can try the same skills.
As a general rule, social skills training always starts with a “lose” with an adult who knows the child’s education program and understands what to look for. An adult will be more predictable when interacting, he will encourage the desired reactions of the child and will adapt more to him than a peer.
It is recommended that the adult who teaches the child should not act out social situations with the child himself, but, if possible, involve a second adult. For example, one parent teaches a child how to play with the other parent. The second parent plays the role of a peer and tries to behave during the game as a peer will behave.
In this case, the "training" adult will provide prompts and encouragement. And it will be enough for the second “substitute peer” adult to model the behavior characteristic of other children. Teaching with a team of two adults will be more effective for the child, as he will expect more natural behavior from communication partners.
Moreover, you can involve different adults in "training" games and communication.
This will help to maintain and generalize the skills as the child gets used to showing them to different people.
It is very important for an autistic child to master basic social skills. It depends on how comfortable and confident he will feel with peers. It will also reduce his negative emotions and allow you to work on more advanced social and play skills with your peers. It will also increase the chance that the organized meeting with a peer will become an encouragement for the child, and his motivation to play with other children will increase.
3. Carefully consider what peers your child might meet to socialize with.
Selecting another child to practice social skills is critical to the success of the education program. Ideally, developing social skills requires a peer who is enthusiastic, socially responsive, and understanding. In other words, this is a sociable child who will initiate the autistic child's response opportunities on his own, will respond kindly to interaction attempts on his part, and will be patient while the other child practices communication.
Peer responses should be a natural encouragement for an autistic child to attempt to communicate. So it is important that this child is able to respond positively to the autistic child, who will be helped to understand why communication is a value.
To find suitable peers, you can contact your child's teachers or other school or kindergarten staff, talk to parents of children living in the neighborhood, ask around in online support groups. You might be surprised how often parents look for peers to connect with their kids in neighbor groups or parent chats.
Describe your expectations as clearly and specifically as possible. For example, meetings for games several times a week / month, a peer will need to read from a script, some meetings will be by video link, and so on.
It may be easiest to look for peers with the same interests as the child. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that these should be children with developed social skills and empathy (who can wait patiently, are not against compromises, and so on), whose parents are ready to treat neurodifferences with understanding and acceptance.
Make regular appointments right away to ensure your child has regular opportunities to practice social skills. For preschool children, you can call the meetings "play together". However, it is important to be honest with your peer about your expectations. For example, he or she will have to follow your class schedule, will have to wait for the other child to respond, and this may take some time.
It may be worth considering rewarding not only for the autistic child, but also for the neurotypical peer. For example, a peer can earn some kind of valuable “prize” for him for helping another child well. Also remember that the structure of the meeting should be in the interests and preferences of both children - it should be a positive experience for everyone!
Some children, especially younger children, will need to practice playing games that your child has already mastered. Some children may seem tense at first, or they may become confused and not know what to do.
Try to be patient and give your peer opportunities to relax and practice answers before moving on to something new. This may take some time, but remember that in the future, this child can become an important part of your child's education team and even his true friend.
4. Use evidence-based learning methods
Once you've identified your learning goals and potential peers to play with, it's time to get started! However, it is important not to forget that social skills training, like any other, must be based on methods supported by scientific evidence.
These methods may look different depending on the structure of the meeting and the individual needs of the child. But in general, they must include:
- motivation system. For example, a board with tokens, which can then be exchanged for the coveted "prize";
- systematic prompts that will gradually decrease so that the child becomes independent. For example, you will first use the verbal prompt "Hello", and then, when you make sure that he greets the peer every time you prompt, you will begin to pause and delay the prompt to give the child the opportunity to say "Hello" himself;
- record objective data about the child's behavior during the meetings to assess his progress.
If what is written above causes you confusion and seems incomprehensible and complex, then you need to consult a behavior analyst or another specialist who is well-versed in applied behavior analysis. It's also a good idea to search the web for videos of others using similar techniques to teach social skills with peers. This will help you get a better idea of what such training looks like in practice and help improve the effectiveness of your training program.
5. Start with the minimum requirements
Make sure social skills classes are a positive experience for your child. Neither you, nor a neurotypical peer, nor an autistic child should be stressed by the plan. Working on a couple of simple goals is better than trying to master a whole list of social skills all at once.
Keep the first meetings with a peer very short. Try as much as possible and immediately prompt the child so that he feels more confident around a peer.
At first, keep rewards very high.
Only when the autistic child and peer are comfortable around each other, and their encounters are going well, can demands be increased followed by rewards.
Be sure to stick to the “best in the end” rule. It is important that both children part on a positive note. Plan something very enjoyable for both children at the end of the meeting, such as a computer game or ice cream.
6. Increase social motivation through preferred activities
It is important to monitor the motivation of both children. Remember that motivation is the key to effective learning for your child. An autistic child will not ask his peers to play with him if he does not like to play with them.
One way to increase motivation is to provide choices. For example, this can be done using a "choice board" with cards for various activities and subjects. If motivation is still too low, think about a system of additional rewards.
Remember: communication should be fun! The joy of both children should be objectively noticeable (by smiles, laughter, involvement in classes).
Otherwise, something needs to be changed.
Stick to your plans and schedule, but use opportunities to change what isn't working. If you planned tagging, but the game didn't work out, then it's okay to say, "You know what? It's kind of awkward, right? Let's move on to what's next on the schedule." If the children agree, then move on. However, you should not make such decisions too often, otherwise it will turn out that your schedule does not make any sense. Instead of skipping class entirely, it's better to find a fun way to finish it sooner or pair it with something else fun or even tasty.
7. Try the reward system
Reward systems can take many different forms (tokens, stickers, points). Think about what motivated your child in the past. You can combine small pieces of his favorite treats to get tokens. And when the child collects all the tokens on the plate, he will be able to get something very desirable, for example, access to his favorite toy.
You can come up with different reward systems for two children.
For example, one child collects tokens that can be exchanged for a prize, while another receives a nice sticker for a desired behavior.
On the other hand, you can use a general reward system for all children: each child can receive a token or points for communication and desirable social behavior (waiting in line, compliments, sharing, etc.), and when all the tokens are collected, they will both receive a common reward.
Best of all, if some treats or games become "special" and can only be obtained during meetings with a peer. In this case, the child will have a higher motivation to earn them.
The reward need not be something edible or tangible. This can be a break on your own terms (a break in a place the child has chosen, or some activity alone for a few minutes to relieve the emotional stress of communication).
Communication with a peer, especially at first, can in principle require a lot from a child, so it is best to plan how the child can "take a break" during the meeting and how he can rest after it.
For example, it can be relaxing “sensory” activities, deep breathing exercises, and so on.
Keep in mind that communication itself may not be motivating for children at first, so adding additional rewards is completely normal. This will help both children to be involved in joint activities and cooperate better, and over time, communication itself can become an encouragement for them.
8. Plan how you will increase your child's independence: reduce prompts, decrease rewards, use visual timetables the child's skills will improve. Provide your child with a planned cue right away at first, and every time the child demonstrates the target skill, praise and reward them. But if the child consistently copes with the skill with a certain level of help, then you need to reduce this help in order to help him become more independent. Similarly, if the child has begun to easily demonstrate a skill, then it is possible to provide a reward only from time to time, and not every time. After all, the ultimate goal is for the child to be rewarded with games and conversations with a friend, and not at all your praise and rewards.
A clear structure for the social skills meeting will help the child to be more successful and effective in it. It is desirable that both children know in advance what awaits them, what will happen first and then, in what order. So it is advisable to make a class schedule with pictures or text (Hampshire & Hourcade, 2014).
An autistic child may also benefit from the text prompts included in the schedule. Or you can develop a complete scenario in which the child can practice communicating with a peer. As your child learns, you can gradually reduce and simplify the schedule so that meetings and communication become more natural.
9. Develop a plan for dealing with problem behaviors
If an autistic child has behaviors that could interfere with successful social skills practice, plan how you will respond to those behaviors and be sure to stick to your plan. Perhaps this is a behavioral plan that has already been developed for the child in other settings. It is very important to discuss with your team, family members and counselor, and anyone who may be involved in the training, the implementation of the plan.
It is important that everyone around the child responds to problem behavior in the same way.
The plan may include strategies to prevent problem behaviors, such as limiting the duration of the peer meeting, using visual support (such as the visual schedule discussed above), regular short breaks, frequent rewards, minimizing activities that may cause frustration.
10. Collect data to measure progress
Gathering data on your child's target skills (which you identified at the beginning) during social skills sessions is key to further progress (Barton & Pavilanis, 2012). This will help you set new goals, evaluate changes objectively, and change your teaching methods if progress has stalled. For example, if a child doesn't say "Hi" to a peer after several encounters, then you may need to increase rewards, increase prompts (such as providing a verbal model for greeting), or consult with a specialist about what else can be done.
The following is an example of what it might look like to collect data to measure a child's progress during a single social skills session.
The skills you teach and the data you collect can vary greatly depending on your child's individual needs and abilities (Lostan, 2022).
Meeting Data for Leo Games
Date: 01/25/2020
Peer: Carter
Peer Greeting Goal: Leo will say "Hello, (name of peer)" for 5 seconds after he sees a peer.
+ 1/1 = 100%
Goal "Answer when peer calls his name": Leo will turn and look at his peer for 5 seconds after his peer calls his name.
+ - - + - 2/5 = 40%
Goal "Play with a peer on the tablet in turns": Leo will set a timer for 2 minutes; play on the tablet until the timer signal sounds; say “Your turn” and give the tablet to a peer; sit and wait 2 minutes without interfering with a peer; say "My turn" when the timer sounds; wait for a peer to give him a tablet.
1. Set the timer +
2. Played on the tablet +
3. Stopped the timer +
4.
