Teaching social skills to elementary students
8 Important Social Skills For Kids And How To Teach Them
Teaching social skills for kids is one of the most complex, confusing, but rewarding aspects of raising young children.
It’s no secret that preschoolers and kindergarteners are naturally egocentric. Even when playing or interacting with others, many children have difficulty sharing, empathizing, collaborating, and cooperating.
HOMER is here to help you learn eight of the most important social skills for kids, as well as how to incorporate them into your family life.
8 Important Social Skills For Kids
1) Sharing
Sharing is a part of daily life. That doesn’t mean it’s easy!
Sharing is a difficult concept for young children to get behind. Toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners have a particularly difficult time, as they are more focused on their needs and desires than the needs and desires of others.
This is normal. The feeling that something “belongs” to them is typically much stronger than their desire to please others.
Even though it’s hard to share, doing so is critical to a child’s social skill development, as it helps them keep and advance friendships. It’s also a great way to bond and show appreciation.
2) Listening
Active listening is an important skill that even some adults struggle with. Properly deciphering and absorbing information requires significant focus.
We all know this can be challenging for young kids, but active listening can strengthen their receptive language skills (the ability to comprehend spoken language).
Receptive language skills help your child:
- Handle social interactions
- Answer questions
- Understand stories
- Comprehend what they’re reading
- Understand gestures
While developing their social skills, your child will come to see how important it is to actively listen when others are speaking.
Paying attention to what someone is saying and responding directly to their statements or questions is a big part of healthy communication.
3) Following Directions
The cousin of good listening skills would be executing the instructions your child heard — a.k.a., following directions!
Following directions becomes particularly important once your child enters into their school years.
It’s one thing to follow directions at home with their parents where they’re innately comfortable; it’s another task entirely to follow directions from adult authority figures they may not know well.
Your child will learn how listening and following directions overlap with one another. If they listen well, it becomes easier for them to follow directions accurately. And when they follow directions accurately, they’ll often be rewarded for their hard work!
Keep in mind, however, that multi-step directions are challenging for young children. To help them develop the ability to follow directions, give them one direction at a time.
4) Collaborating And Cooperating
Similar to sharing, your child will learn how to move beyond sharing objects to sharing ideas, stories, and work.
With good collaboration and cooperation skills, children will learn that working in a group gives them a chance to express their ideas and listen to the ideas of others. It allows them to see that it can be fun to work on a shared project!
This may sound simple, but for young children, cooperation can often require real effort. It will take time for them to learn to respect others’ opinions even when they’re different.
By working together toward a common goal, kids can advance their sharing skills to include both intellectual and physical (think: cleaning the dinner table with a sibling) feats.
5) Patience
How many times have you heard the cliche, “Patience is a virtue”? Well, we are here to say it one more time!
It’s normal for young children to be impatient. However, patience really is one of the most rewarding social skills for kids.
Patience is critical for many things, including maintaining friendships and relationships and achieving big goals that can only be completed over an extended period of time.
This is where the concept of delayed gratification comes into play. When you help your child understand that good things often take time (not everything in life is microwaveable!), you nurture them into a patient person.
Learning patience takes practice and, you guessed it, patience! Trust that it will come with time (as everything does).
6) Empathy
When we say “empathy,” we’re referring to the traditional definition — the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Your child will learn how to appreciate the similarities and differences between their lives and those of people they meet. They will also learn how to empathize with these people, no matter how different they are.
For young children, this can mean small gestures.
For example, if their friend or sibling cries because your child is playing with a specific toy, your child may pause and say, “I know you want to play, too. Don’t be sad. We can take turns!”
But this sense of empathy will likely not appear overnight! Empathy develops over time and across a variety of scenarios.
The easiest way to promote your child’s development of empathy is by showing it in action. When you extend grace to your child often, they will learn how to extend it back.
7) Respecting Boundaries
Some people require different emotional and physical boundaries than your child.
This can be a particularly difficult concept to learn, especially for very young children who receive most of their socialization from within the household.
Likely, if your child is extroverted, they may assume everyone is OK with hugs, questions, or lots of chit-chat. In some cases, they may be right! In others, they may accidentally cross boundaries in their efforts to be friendly.
Teaching your child how to ask permission and identify boundaries helps them establish a sense of respect between themselves and others. The same goes for helping them establish boundaries for themselves.
Let your child know that it’s OK to say no to hugs, kisses, or other displays of affection from someone — no matter who it may be — if they feel uncomfortable.
Model this idea by asking questions yourself (“Would you like a hug?”).
When they make their boundaries clear and ask for others to do the same, it will make both parties feel much more at-home.
8) Positivity
Working on positivity can make it exponentially easier for your child to tackle many of the other social skills for kids we’ve mentioned, especially patience, boundaries, listening, and sharing.
With a positive attitude, your child will find it easier to make and keep friends, succeed in school, and achieve their goals.
The easiest way to demonstrate positivity is by modeling it. The more positive you are about your child’s social skill development (including their inevitable slip-ups), the more reassured and positive they will become themselves.
This doesn’t mean you have to be positive all the time. In fact, a healthy amount of honest criticism can be beneficial in helping your child learn to express their feelings.
To do this, start with your own emotions.
Let them know how you’re feeling and how you’re managing it in real time if you can. Kids need to know it’s OK to be sad, angry, or mad sometimes and how to handle it.
How To Teach Social Skills To Kids
Now that you know what social skills for kids to include, how do you go about teaching them at home? Let’s take a look!
Normalize Mistakes
Your child should know that you do not expect perfection. There is no way to execute all of these social skills every time, everywhere, without mistakes.
That is OK! In fact, it’s encouraged. Mistakes are normal; they’re how we learn what went right or wrong.
Make sure you normalize this for your child. If they know all humans learn lessons this way, it’ll be easier for them to push through the sting of a mistake and try again.
Encourage Sharing (Without Violating Boundaries!)
Although sharing is great and should be encouraged, there may be some things that are special to your child that they don’t want to share.
This can be especially true of stuffed animals, blankets, or special toys.
This is OK, too! It’s great for your child to set boundaries that you and other children respect. To encourage sharing, try not to force it.
Encouraging without forcing also demonstrates to kids how boundaries can be created, acknowledged, and respected between people.
This will motivate them to share with those around them by taking comfort in the fact that what is special to them has been kept sacred and separate. It will also encourage them to be direct about their and others’ boundaries when it comes to play, school, or emotional issues.
Check Their Listening
During social interactions within your own family or outside of it, pay attention to your child’s listening skills. You can observe them to see if they are listening carefully.
Do they seem engaged? Are the asking questions?
And remember it is just as important to listen to your child. This shows them that what they are saying is important and encourages them to listen to you in return.
Think About How You Give Directions
In teaching social skills for kids, the parent or authority figure is responsible for ensuring the directions they give are something a young child can execute successfully.
When giving instructions, be clear, firm, and gentle. As we mentioned earlier, children have a very difficult time executing tasks with many directions at once. Start with one direction at a time that your child can focus on.
When giving instructions, have your child repeat what you want them to do. Only give an additional instruction when the first has been completed. Repeat until the task is complete.
Your child can give you directions, too! That way they have a sense of what it takes to delegate, manage, and execute a task from start to finish.
Give Empathy To Get Empathy
Show your child that you think about other people’s emotions, too! This is less of a teaching moment and more of an authentic display of empathy.
If you see that your child is expressing an emotion, validate it for them.
“Oh, I see that you’re excited. I love that you’re so eager and happy to do this!”
You can acknowledge negative emotions, too. For example, you might say, “I know that must make you angry. Do you know how I can tell? What can we do together to make you feel less unhappy?”
This not only helps them feel seen and heard in the moment, but it also gives them a direct example of how to tackle empathy with others in similar situations.
Social Skills For Kids Are Essential
The more your child experiences the benefits of social skills, the more intuitive these skills will become for them. However, all children learn at different rates. With practice (and patience!), we know they’ll get there.
The Learn with Sesame Street app is an effective tool that helps kids learn and develop their social and emotional skills. With the help of their Sesame Street friends, kids learn how to express their emotions, empathize with others, and create healthy relationships. Explore the Learn with Sesame Street app today!
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How to Teach Social Skills, Step by Step
Seating students together is not enough to ensure teamwork.
Many kids have very little idea how to interact appropriately with their classmates. They simply lack the social skills needed to perform the most basic cooperative learning tasks. Lack of social skills is probably the biggest factor contributing to lack of academic success in teams. Fortunately, social skills can be taught just like academic skills. If you use a systematic approach like the one described below, you’ll find that your students CAN learn how to interact appropriately and become productive team members.
Listen to the Podcast: How to Teach Social Skills for Working Together
For more information about how to teach social skills, listen to Episode 7 of my Inspired Teaching Made Easy podcast below.
Six Step Process for Teaching Social Skills
1. Discuss the Need for Social Skills
Before you can help students improve their social skills, they need to understand why these skills are important. You might begin by asking your students to think about problems they may have experienced when working in groups, such as team members not listening to each other or not taking turns.
Explain that most of these problems are caused by poor “social skills,” sometimes known as “people skills.” You might even mention that sometimes adults need to work on their social skills, too! Brainstorm a list of social skills that might make it easier for students to work together in teams. If they can’t think of any social skills for working together, share some of the suggestions from the list below.
2. Select a Social Skill
Even though your students may need to work on several different social skills, it’s best to focus on just one skill at a time. You can start with the skill you feel is most important, or you can let your class decide which skill they need to work on at a given time. I like to start with “Praising,” which might also be stated as “Showing Appreciation,” because when kids master this skill, all of the other skills are easier to learn.
3. Teach the Social Skill
Step 3 is to teach the skill explicitly so that your students know exactly what to do and what to say in order to master the social skill.
For this part of the lesson, you can use the Working Together Skills T-chart below by projecting it on a whiteboard or drawing it on anchor chart paper.
Write the name of the social skill in the box at the top of the Working Together Skills chart. Then ask your students to help you brainstorm what they might do and what they might say when demonstrating the social skill. Write what they might DO under the Looks Like heading because this is what the skill looks like when it is demonstrated. Write the words they might SAY under the Sounds Like heading because this is what the skill might sound like to someone who is observing the activity.
Examples for the social skill of Praising:
Looks Like: Thumbs up, Clapping, Smiling
Sounds Like: Terrific! I knew you could do it! Way to go! I like the way you…
4. Practice the Skill
After you complete the Working Together Skills chart with your students, it’s important to have them practice the skill right away by participating in a structured cooperative learning activity.
For example, if you taught Active Listening as the social skill, you might follow up with a team discussion activity in which students take turns answering questions or sharing ideas around the team. Here a a few suggestions for cooperative learning structures you can use to practice specific social skills:
Social Skills and Cooperative Learning Structures
| Social Skills | Structures for Practice* |
| Active Listening | Roundrobin, Think-Pair-Share, Mix-Freeze-Pair |
| Praising | Rallytable, Roundtable, Pairs Check, Showdown |
| Taking Turns | Rallytable, Pairs Check, Roundtable |
| Using Quiet Voices | Think-Pair-Share, Numbered Heads Together, Showdown |
| Staying on Task | Rallytable, Roundtable, Pairs Check, Showdown, Mix-N-Match |
| Helping or Coaching | Rallytable, Pairs Check, Showdown, Mix-N-Match |
| Using Names | Mix-N-Match, Mix-Freeze-Pair, Showdown |
 Spencer Kagan’s book, Cooperative Learning. | |
5. Pause and Reflect
Sometime during the practice activity, use an attention signal to stop the class. Ask them to think about how they’ve been using the social skill. If you have observed teams or individuals doing a good job with the skill, share your observations with the class. Challenge students to continue to work on their use of the social skill as they complete the activity. Refer to your Working Together Skills T-chart if students have forgotten what the skill Looks Like and Sounds Like.
6. Review and Reflect
At the end of the activity, reflect again on how well the social skills were used. Take a few minutes to discuss the positive interactions that were happening, and aspects of the social skill that still need work. This is a also a perfect opportunity for personal journal writing and reflections. Consider these writing prompts:
- How well was the social skill being used on your team? What specific examples do you remember?
- How did you personally use the social skill? What did you do and/or say? To whom?
- How might you improve in using this skill next time?
By the way, it’s not necessary to follow all six steps every time you teach a new social skill.
The most important elements are explicitly teaching of the skill and immediately following the instruction with a cooperative activity to practice the skill. The reflection steps are important and should be included as often as possible, too.
Modification for Younger Students
Younger students or special needs students could benefit from watching an excellent video created by Model Me Kids called Time for School. This video shows students exactly how to perform specific social skills. Even if you don’t use the video with your students, you might be interested in viewing it yourself to see how social skills can be broken down into steps and taught. If the video is appropriate for your students, they could watch it before completing the Working Together Skills chart above.
Soft skills or social skills for a student: 85% of success in life
Harvard and Stanford believe that a student's academic knowledge is only 15% of success in his further education, in building a career and in life.
Russian schools actively download knowledge into the heads of our children, but do not teach them social skills, the so-called soft skills - leadership, teamwork, organizational skills, etc. Namely, they allow you to apply the acquired knowledge and achieve your goals: a prestigious university, a successful career, a happy family and true friendship. nine0003
A study of Fortune 500 CEOs found that long-term and sustained job success was 75% social skills and only 25% academic.
Therefore, European education has long included the training of soft skills, without which it is difficult to succeed in the modern world. Many of these traits are innate and inherent in every child, but they need to be cultivated and developed. Here are some critical social skills that will help any student reach their goals in life. nine0003
TEAM WORK
The ability to listen, the ability to see a common goal and find common ground between a common idea and personal ambitions.
Willingness to help others and support in a difficult situation, the ability to convince and find a compromise.
Check if your child can:
- do things with other children?
- help someone solve their study question?
- to make sure that not only he, but his entire team achieves the goal? nine0024
How it is taught in a foreign school:
- team activities: games, performance, volunteer programs;
- joint academic projects, when the project can be defended only by the whole team;
- competitions between "Houses" for students studying on a full board basis.
Join our Telegram channel!
Be the first to know about discounts, events and important news. nine0045 We promise - it will be interesting!
LEADERSHIP
To be a leader means to be a person whom everyone else recognizes as having the right to make responsible decisions for the entire team.
Check if your child can:
- to become a leader for other children: inspire and lead them?
- understand and feel other people?
- to set other children tasks corresponding to their abilities and character and to achieve their fulfillment? nine0024
How it is taught in a foreign school:
- Supervision of junior schoolchildren and beginners by high school students;
- Numerous clubs and hobby classes are sure to resonate in the soul of any student, and he will take the initiative in the area that interests him and gather his team of like-minded people.
We are looking for leaders, but not from the category of "president of the chess club", but from those who, faced with a problem, can at the right time take the lead of the team and lead it to the goal
- Laszlo Bock, Vice President of Recruitment, Google
CREATIVITY
A creative person is able to find non-standard, completely new solutions in familiar situations, he is able to invent and implement new ideas.
Check if your child can:
- Suggest an idea for a gala evening, fashion design or pop star poster?
- tell your friends the story he made up? nine0024
- come up with an idea for a new computer game or mobile application?
How it is taught in a foreign school:
- When solving a problem, the student will be asked not only to give the correct answer, but also to find 10 different solutions;
- Students focus on both academic knowledge and extracurricular activities - music classes, theater productions and acting skills, development of artistic skills. It is easier for a child with a broad outlook to find a non-standard approach to solving a problem. nine0024
COMMUNICATION
The ability to communicate, openness and the ability to establish contact with other people, as well as to make the right impression on them.
Check if your child can:
- Is it clear and interesting to express your ideas and thoughts?
- speak confidently with a group of your peers, with a school principal, with other adults?
- perform in front of an audience of 100 people?
How it is taught in a foreign school:
- Students are encouraged to actively participate in discussions in the classroom.
And the final assessment is influenced by the student's involvement in lectures and seminars and his ability to defend his point of view; - Schoolchildren are constantly surrounded by their peers and implement academic projects together, participate in sports and creative events, attend hobby groups;
- Career days and meetings with universities are regularly held for high school students. Schools set aside time to develop a personal resume, self-presentation skills and interviews. nine0024
MANAGEMENT
This is the ability to bring people together to achieve a goal and inspire yourself and others to action. Initiative, demanding of oneself and others, attention to detail, the ability to delegate or do it yourself - all these are important qualities of an organizer.
Check if your child can:
- organize your time so that you can keep up with your studies and take part in extra school activities? nine0024
- put together a team to run cross country together or organize a party?
- make quick decisions when things don't go as planned?
How it is taught in a foreign school:
- time management skills are the first thing a student learns.
Unlike Russian students, European students do not study from morning to evening. The whole day is scheduled by the clock, there is time for study, sports, hobbies, homework and, of course, time for rest; nine0024 - Participation in numerous school events requires a variety of skills from a student, including the ability to organize an exhibition, a holiday, a performance, a debate, a sports match, and much more.
POSITIVE
Faith in yourself and in other people. This is such a view of the world in which a person can look at events from different angles and prefers to find positive in everything that surrounds him.
Check if your child can:
- keep a smile on your face despite the challenges?
- to fight and not give up, even when you fail to achieve the goal?
- try to solve your problems on your own, without immediately resorting to your help?
How it is taught in a foreign school:
- Support and attention of teachers, mentors and high school students.
The school is well aware of the difficulties students face and is always ready to help with advice and pay attention to positive events. nine0024 - A healthy competitive environment helps students focus on their goals and not on temporary setbacks.
CURIOSITY
Intellectual curiosity, thirst for new knowledge, interest in the world around and desire for new experiences. This is a natural quality of any child and it is important to preserve it.
Check if your child can:
- look up from your phone or tablet and look around when you are driving? nine0024
- when you find yourself in a new place, try to find out something about it?
- ask questions about how the world works?
How it is taught in a foreign school:
- The task of every teacher is not only to prepare a student for the final exams, but also to make him fall in love with his subject. The first thing that Russian children and parents notice is that students in European schools love to study.
- Well-equipped classrooms and laboratories - here you can study not only theory, but also try everything in practice. Chemistry, physics, biology become especially exciting. nine0024
- School activities also include guest lecturers and thematic excursions. Children can learn first-hand about the subject and specialties: who you can become in the future, how you can apply the acquired knowledge in practice, what kind of employees employers want to see.
Most children are not very self-confident. They worry about entering a new social situation, about learning new skills, about having to complete a new task, even more difficult. They seek help and support from friends, parents, teachers, and this is natural. nine0003
Studying in European schools, students develop their social skills, becoming more self-confident. These skills have nothing to do with intelligence, the ability to quote Shakespeare in the original, or mentally multiply three-digit numbers. But the ability of a child to clearly formulate thoughts, offer alternatives and respect someone else's point of view will make him successful in all areas of life.
After all, as Henry Ford said, confidence is half the battle.
European schools help students develop their social skills. nine0003
They will not appear on your high school diploma or university degree.
But these abilities are important in order to enter a good university, successfully complete it and find a dream job, which means getting a pass to a happy life.
Contact the manager and choose school
by phone +7 (495) 935-85-45
through the request form on the site
See also:
Early Childhood Social Skills - Child Development
In the lower grades, the child's social circle changes. Some find best friends for themselves, many strive for this. Some children find it easy to find company, others find it difficult. How can you help your child learn to get along with peers? Let's take a look at some suggestions for this.
1. Be alert to situations where your child is having difficulty with peers
If you tell your child each time what he should do in a given situation, you will let him know that he is not able to cope with such situations on their own.
Your instructions won't teach him anything. Instead, help your child understand their feelings and identify the cause of the problem. nine0003
2. Do not take sides in conflicts between the child and peers
Listen to the child's point of view and accept his feelings, but do not blame the other child for everything. If you suspect that your child is not completely honest with you, invite him to look at the situation from the opposite side. However, don't blame your child either. For example, you could say to your child, “I wonder why Ann said such hurtful words. Maybe she was offended by you and Katya for not inviting her to play with you? nine0003
3. Teach your child to voice their needs without being in conflict with others
This can be difficult and will likely require a lot of your time and patience. For example, if your little daughter is yelling at her friend, “Don't give orders!”, you might say, “You seem to be very angry with Ira.
Tell her what you want rather than what you think of her.”
4. Teach your child how to stand for yourself
Every child should learn this skill. For some, this will require you to sort out some situations by roles: “It seems to me that you wanted to tell Sasha that you like to fight him, but you need to discuss the rules. For example, you can agree that the word "stop" means the end of the fight. It's probably hard to tell a friend. Let's rehearse these words, and it will be easier for you to say them to Sasha.
5. Do not deny the child's point of view about other people
Instead, accept the child's feelings and help him express them. For example, instead of the phrase: “I don’t think Ksenia wanted to offend you. You should not refuse to go to her birthday, "you can say:" It seems to me that what Xenia said in the yard offended you. You think she did it on purpose and that's why you don't want to go to her birthday party.
"
Your emotional support will help your child deal with negative feelings and make informed decisions as a result. nine0003
6. Acknowledge and respond to the child's feelings rather than being dismissive
Parents sometimes find it so difficult to see their child experiencing negative emotions that they become angry at the person who caused them. At the same time, they can say: “He is not your friend. Don't hang out with him and find yourself some new friends." But such advice will not help the child. They deny the child's feelings, and as a result, he continues to suffer.
First of all, get your own feelings about the situation under control. Empathize with your child and help him process his feelings. The child may become even more sad for a while, but this is how he expresses his feelings, and does not suppress them. When he feels better, he will try to find the best way out of the situation. nine0003
7. In primary school, children often suffer from the fact that someone tries to command them
All children want everything to happen the way they want.
But at the same time they want other children to play with them. The ability to negotiate is extremely important at this age. To teach this to your child, ask him questions, for example: “What is more important to you: that you can play the way you want, or that Katya play with you?”
When another child tries to be bossy, yours may need prompting on how to communicate politely. Teach your child phrases like: “I want to play with you. But we've been playing with dolls all morning, and I'm already tired. Let's come up with something that will be interesting for both of us." nine0003
8. Teach your child to find different solutions to problems
Often, when children experience different emotions, they know what actions to take, for example: “I am no longer angry with Serezha, and I want to play with him. I'll go and invite him to play." But, if the child does not know what to do, help him. Sometimes a child just doesn't know how to say "no" without ruining a friendship with someone.
And you can help him with this.
9. If the child is having difficulty, think about how you can help him
Some children have difficulty with social skills, such as being unable to join a new company. Some children do not know how to listen to the interlocutor and invade the personal space of other children. Watch your child when he plays with peers and pay attention to what goes wrong. Later, without making the child feel guilty or ashamed, act out this scene with plush toys. At the same time, ask the child what the characters should say or do. Inject some fun into this activity to lighten the mood. nine0003
Reading books on social skills can also be helpful, so that the child understands that you want to support him, not correct his behavior.
If you don't know how to help your child, read parenting books about social skills. This will help you understand what your child needs to learn and provide targeted support.
10. Be attentive to the words of other children and their parents.
When need be ready intervene
Emotional reactions to certain situations can become habitual in a child. An example of this is the use of force: parents often justify such behavior of young children, but when the children get older, there is nothing they can do about it. When children (especially at the age of two) show aggression, this indicates that they cannot cope with their feelings (most often fear) that affect their behavior. When a child resorts to the use of force in primary school, this is a signal to parents that he needs help. nine0003
If the parents of another child say that your son has hit him, you should be wary. Don't blame your child, but help him put himself in his peer's shoes and think about how he felt. Invite your child to apologize. Analyze the situation with him and think about how to avoid this next time. Explain to the child that, whether provoked or not, the use of physical force is unacceptable.
