Teaching social skills to youth

Teaching Social Skills to Youth, 4th Edition | Jeff Tierney, M.Ed. and Erin Green, M.S.

$37.95

An Easy-to-Follow Guide Teaching 196 Basic to Complex LifeSkills

Authors Jeff Tierney, M.Ed. and Erin Green, M.S.

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SKU:: 45-022
UPC:: 978-1-944882-97-6
Availability:: September 1, 2022

Description

Updated and revised, this definitive guide to social skills instruction now features thirteen new skills and their behavioral steps, fresh insights into providing culturally responsive treatment that respects individual identity, more inclusive language, and updated research on social-emotional learning and executive function.

The 196 social and life skills showcased in this fourth edition will empower young people to have greater success in school, at home, on the job, and in their relationships. Several of the new skills promote the values and principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Those skills include:

· Sticking Up for Yourself

· Sticking Up for Others

· Agreeing to Disagree

· Recognizing Your Own Personal Biases or Opinions

Other new skills focus on personal autonomy (Gaining Consent, Giving Consent, and Responding to Persons of Authority). Plus, there are new skills that teach young people how to interact with law enforcement (Being Prepared for an Interaction with Law Enforcement and Responding to Law Enforcement/Police Interactions).

The manual reflects and focuses on the importance of teaching social skills to youth of all ages, the elements of social behavior (task and behavior analysis), individual and group teaching techniques, generalization of skills, the role of skill-based interventions for difficult youth problems, and the Boys Town Social Skills Curriculum itself.

For ease and convenience, there are four appendices that group skills by behavior problem areas, common situations or circumstances, social and emotional learning competencies (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making), and skill type (social, emotional management, academic, moral/ethical, and independent living). Every skill is available for download and print through BoysTownPress.org.

Teaching Social Skills to Youth, Fourth Edition is ideal for classrooms, individual and group therapy, and job training programs. Educators and caregivers can use this guide to strengthen their cultural competence, increase the skill competency of children, help improve student behavior in school, and develop individualized service plans for troubled or at-risk youth. It is an excellent companion to the highly acclaimed Mental Health from Diagnosis to Delivery and Building Resiliency in Youth, both available from Boys Town Press.

The authors have decades of experience working with children and families, and they are experts on issues related to youth aggression, antisocial behavior, abuse, delinquency, and mental health.

Recommended Lesson Plans and Activity Guides to accompany Teaching Social Skills to Youth:

Tools for Teaching Social Skills in School
More Tools for Teaching Social Skills in School
Take Two: Skill-Building Skits You Have Time to Do!
13 & Counting: Rescue Me?
13 & Counting: Be the Difference!
13 & Counting: Does a Hamburger Really Have to Be Round?
ZEST: Live It!
GRIT & Bear It!

ISBN: 978-1-944882-97-6

Published by Boys Town Press

Evidence-based social skills activities for children & teens (w/ teaching tips)

These social skills activities can help kids forge positive relationships — and better understand what other people are feeling and thinking.

How can we help children develop social competence — the ability to read emotions, cooperate, make friends, and negotiate conflicts? Kids learn when we act as good role models, and they benefit we create environments that reward self-control. But there is nothing quite like practice. To develop and grow, kids need first-hand experience with turn-taking, self-regulation, teamwork, and perspective-taking.

Here are 17 research-inspired social skills activities for kids, organized by age-group. I begin with games suitable for the youngest children, and end with social skills activities appropriate for older kids and teens.

1. Turn-taking games

Young children — including some babies — are capable of spontaneous acts of kindness, but they can be shy around new people. So how can we teach them that a new person is a friend?

One powerful method is to have a child engage in playful acts of reciprocity with the stranger. For example, the child take turns pressing the button on a toy, or rolling a ball back and forth. The child and stranger might hand each other interesting objects.

When psychologists Rodolfo Cortes Barragan and Carol Dweck (2014) tested this simple tactic on 1- and 2-year-olds, the children seemed to flip a switch.

The babies began to respond to their new playmates as people to help and share with. By contrast, there was no such effect if children merely played alongside the stranger — without engaging in acts of reciprocity.

2. The toddler “name game”

As early childhood specialist Kathleen Cochran has noted, many children need help with the fundamentals of getting someone else’s attention. They don’t yet understand that it’s important to speak the person’s name.

“It’s such a simple thing,” Cochran says, “yet it’s the beginning of being able to understand another person’s point of view. ” So how do we teach this concept? Cochran and her colleagues recommend this simple social game (Teachers’ College, Columbia University 1999) :

Seat children in a circle, and give one of them a ball.
Ask this child to choose another person in the circle and speak his or her name. Then the child rolls the ball to named individual.
Once the ball has been received, the next child follows the same procedure — naming an intended recipient and passing the ball along.

3. Music-making and rhythm games for young children

Young children are often inclined to help other people. How can we encourage this impulse? Research suggests that joint singing and music-making are effective social skills activities for fostering cooperative, supportive behavior.

For example, consider this game.

“Waking Up The Frogs”

First, you take a bunch of preschoolers who don’t know each other, and direct their attention to a “pond” — a blue blanket spread on the floor with several “lily pads” on it. Toy frogs sit on the lily pads.

Then you tell the children the frogs are sleeping. It’s morning, and the frogs need our help to wake up! So you give the children simple music instruments (like maracas), and ask them to sing a little wake-up song while they walk around the pond in time with the music.

When researchers played this game with 4-year-olds, they subsequently tested the children’s spontaneous willingness to help other kids. Compared with children who had “awakened the frogs” with a non-musical version of the activity, the music-makers were more likely to help out a struggling peer (Kirschner and Tomasello 2010).

4. Preschool games that reward attention and self-control

To get along well with others, children need to develop focus, attention skills, and the ability to restrain their impulses. The preschool years are an important time to learn such self-control, and we can help them do it.

Traditional games like “Simon Says” and “Red light, Green light” give youngsters practice in following directions and regulating their own behavior. For more information, see the research-tested games described in my article about teaching self-control. For additional advice about the socialization of young children, see this Parenting Science article about preschool social skills.

5. Group games of dramatic, pretend play

To get along with others, kids need to be able to calm themselves down when something upsetting happens. They need to learn to keep their cool. And one promising way for kids to hone these skills is to engage in dramatic make-believe with others.

To try this approach, lead young children in games of joint make-believe, like

pretending to be a family of non-human animals,
dressing up as chefs and pretending to bake a cake together, or
taking turns pretending to be statues (and having peers pose the statues in various ways).

In a randomized experiment of preschoolers from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, Thalia Goldstein and Matthew Lerner found evidence that these social skills activities helped children develop better emotional self-regulation (Goldstein and Lerner 2018). After 8 weeks of teacher-led play, kids assigned to play group games of dramatic, pretend play improved more than did children assigned to alternative social skills activities, like playing together with blocks.

6. “Emotion charades” for young children

In this game, one player acts out a certain emotion, and the other players must guess which feeling is being portrayed. In effect, it’s simple version of charades for the very young.

Is it helpful? At the very least, it’s a way to motivate young children to think about and discuss emotions. And the game has been included (along with several other social skills activities) in a preschool program developed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In a small experimental study, the program, called the “Kindness Curriculum,” was linked with successful outcomes: Compared with kids in a control group, graduates of the “Kindness Curriculum” experienced greater improvements in teacher-rated social competence (Flook et al 2015).

7. Drills that help kids read facial expressions

People who are good at interpreting facial expressions can better anticipate what others will do. They are also more “prosocial,” or helpful towards others.

Experiments suggest that kids can improve their face-reading skills with practice. For more information, see these Parenting Science social skills activities for teaching kids about faces.

8. Checker stack: A game for keeping up a two-way conversation

Some kids, including those with autism spectrum disorders, have difficulty maintaining a conversation with peers. Dr. Susan Williams White has developed a number of social skills activities to help them, including Checker Stack, a game that requires kids to take turns and stay on topic.

To play this two-player game, you need only a set of stackable tokens — like checkers or poker chips — and an adult or peer group to help judge the relevance of each player’s contributions.

The game begins when Player One sets down a token and says something to initiate a conversation. Next, Player Two responds with an appropriate utterance, and places another checker on top of the first one.

The players keep taking turns to advance the conversation. How long can they sustain it? How tall can their stack become? When a player says something irrelevant or off-topic, the conversational flow is broken and the game is over (White 2011).

9. Passing the ball: A game for honing group communication skills

Here is another activity recommended by Dr. Susan Williams White — a game where players form a circle, and take turns contributing to a group conversation.

The game begins with a player who starts the chat, and then tosses a ball to someone else in the circle. Next, the recipient responds with an appropriate, relevant contribution of his or her own, and tosses the ball to another child. And so on.

To play successfully, kids must attend to whoever is speaking, and make eye contact during the exchange of the ball.

White advises that you participate in the game yourself, and, if you notice that one of the kids isn’t getting the opportunity to contribute, you can request that you receive the ball next. Then you can complete your turn by tossing the ball to the child who was left out (White 2011).

You can find this game, Checker Stack, and other social skills activities in White’s book, Social Skills Training for Children with Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism (see the references section below)

10. Cooperative games

There are many kinds of cooperative games. Some are more sedentary, like the many cooperative board games being sold today. Others are active or physical, like the games “Islands” and “Timeball” invented by William Haskell, and tested on older elementary school students (Street et al 2004).

In one study, researchers found that playing these games over a period of 12 weeks led to small but noticeable improvements in “prosocial” behavior — being kind and helpful towards others (Street et al 2004).

“Islands”

To play “Islands” you need a bunch of young children and some hula hoops — about one hoop for every three kids in the class. Then you spread the hoops out on the ground, and let the kids mill around them. When you whistle, every child must step inside a hoop, and each hoop must contain at least three kids. Children will have to cooperate — and hold onto each other — to fit inside a hoop.

“Timeball”

In this game, kids spread out in an open space, each standing with his or her feet together. One child is given a ball. Then this child passes the ball to someone else, and immediately sits down. The second child repeats the exercise, until all kids are seated.

The catch? The object of the game is to get everyone seated as quickly as possible, and the ball must never touch the ground, so kids need to toss the ball with care. Moreover, when deciding where to pass the ball next, they need to consider how difficult it will be for other kids on subsequent turns: If kids pass the ball in a pattern that leaves some children “stranded” at a distance — making it harder to toss the ball without dropping it — the whole team will lose. So kids will likely want to discuss tactics.

What are the effects of these and other games?

The most obvious benefit is that they encourage kids to act, well…nicer. In one study, researchers found that playing games like “Islands” and “Timeball,” over a period of 12 weeks led to small but noticeable improvements in children’s prosocial behavior. They tended to show more kindness, helpfulness, and empathy (Street et al 2004).

But other research suggests this could be the tip of the iceberg. For example, studies show that successful experiences with cooperation encourage children to continue the trend: If you cooperate with me today, I’m more likely to cooperate with you tomorrow (Blake et al 2015; Keil et al 2017). So it seems likely that cooperative games could serve as a kind of “ally-making” tool between players.

And it also appears that certain types of cooperative games could help children develop their ability to persuade and convince others with well-reasoned arguments.

“Match animals to the right habitat”

In an experimental study of 5- and 7-year-olds, kids had to work in pairs on a sorting task. They had to match different animal species with an appropriate habit, and explain their decisions.

Half the kids were randomly assigned to a cooperative version of this game, where both players worked together as a team. The remaining children played the game competitively. And what happened? The kids who played the cooperative game offered more justification for their ideas. They were also more likely to produce arguments that considered both sides of the question (Domberg et al 2018).

You can read more about the study — and the benefits of cooperative games — in this Parenting Science article.

11. Cooperative construction

Another form of play that promotes cooperation is team construction. When kids create something together with blocks, they must communicate, negotiate, and coordinate. Do such social skills activities make a difference?

It makes sense intuitively, and there is scientific evidence that a specialized program of cooperative construction therapy — called “LEGO^®-based therapy” — can help kids who need extra support to develop their social communication skills (Owens et al 2008).

In a recent review of published studies, researchers concluded that “LEGO^®-based therapy” is a “promising treatment” for enhancing social interactions with kids on the ASD spectrum (Narzisi et al 2020). If you had a child with special needs, it’s worth asking your pediatrician about this form of therapy.

I haven’t found any rigorous experiments on the subject, but it makes sense that cooperative gardening could help kids hone social skills, and observational research supports the idea.

Kids tend to improve their social competence when they engage in community-based or school-based gardening (Ozer et al 2007; Block et al 2012; Gibbs et al 2013; Pollin and Retzlaff-Fürst 2021).

What sorts of things can children do in the garden? Take a cue from a recent study of cooperative gardening in 6th graders. The kids were assigned to groups, and each group was given the responsibility for tending a specific garden bed. In addition, kids were asked to identify different plants, document plant growth, conduct soil tests, and make observations of snails (Pollin and Retzlaff-Fürst 2021).

13. Story-based discussions about emotion

Here’s a social skills activity you can try just about anywhere: Read a story with emotional content, and have kids talk about it afterwards.

Why did the main character get angry? What kinds of things make you get angry? What do you do to cool off? When kids participate in group conversations about emotion, they reflect on their own experiences, and learn about individual differences in the way people react to the world. And that understanding may help kids develop their “mind-reading” abilities.

In one study, 7-year-old school children met twice a week to discuss an emotion featured in a brief story. Sometimes their teachers encouraged them to talk about recognizing the signs of a given emotion. In other sessions, the kids discussed what causes emotions, or shared ideas about how to handle negative emotions (“When I feel sad, I play video games,” or “I feel better when my mother hugs me”).

After two months, participants outperformed peers in a control group, showing significant improvements in their understanding of emotion. They also scored higher on tests of empathy and “theory of mind” — the ability to reason about other people’s thoughts and beliefs (Ornaghi et al 2014).

14. Classic charades for older kids and teens

We’ve already mentioned “Emotion Charades” for young children. The traditional or classic version of the game is also an excellent activity for honing social skills among older kids.

Consider why. In the traditional game, a player draws a slip of paper from a container and silently reads what is written there — a phrase that describes a situation (like “walking the dog”) or that names a famous book, film, song, or television show. Then, through pantomime, the player tries to convey this phrase to his or her unknowing team-mates.

What gestures are most likely to communicate the crucial information? To perform an effective pantomime, you need to be good at perspective-taking, or imagining what viewers need to see in order to guess the answer. You also have to stay focused on the rules, and refrain from talking.

And if you are one of the players who must guess the answer? Once again, mind-reading is important. In fact, there is evidence that watching charades switches our brains into “mind-reading mode.”

During a study using fMRI scans, players observing gestures experienced enhanced activity in the temporo-parietal junction, a part of the brain associated with reflecting on the mental states of other people (Schippers et al 2009).

It seems, then, that charades encourages kids to think about other perspectives, and fine-tune their nonverbal communication skills.

15. Team athletics that feature training in good sportsmanship

Research suggests that team athletics can function as effective social skills activities — if adults model the right behavior, and actively teach kids to be good sports.

In one study, elementary school students who received explicit instruction in good sportsmanship showed greater leadership and conflict-resolution skills than did their control group peers (Sharpe et al 1995).

In another study, researchers found that adolescents displayed better social skills if their athletic coaches took a democratic approach to leadership, and offered lots of social support and positive feedback. When kids perceived the coach to be autocratic, they were less likely to report growth in social competence (de Albuquerque et al 2021).

And — in a variety of studies — researchers have found that players are more likely to stay motivated and positive if their coaches avoid authoritarian tactics, like intimidation, threats, and the manipulative use of rewards (e.g., Sevil-Serrano et al 2021).

So what’s a good way to ensure that kids learn the right lessons from team sports?

It sounds like adults need to allow kids to participate in decisions about a team’s goals. They also need to maintain a pleasant, emotionally supportive relationship with athletes, and motivate kids with positive comments about their successes. And it makes sense to actively instruct kids on the principles of good sportsmanship, including

Being a good winner (not bragging; showing respect for the losing team)
Being a good loser (congratulating the winner; not blaming others for a loss)
Showing respect to other players and to the referee
Showing encouragement and offering help to less skillful players
Resolving conflicts without running to the teacher

During a game, we should give kids the chance to put these principles into action before we swoop in. And when the game is over, we should give kids feedback on their good sportsmanship.

These become increasingly important as kids get older, and they require more than empathy and good manners. They also require more than native “smarts.”

Studies indicate that most people — regardless of IQ — fall prey to “myside bias” — the tendency to evaluate neutral evidence in favor of one’s personal interests (Stanovich et al 2013).

But that doesn’t mean we can’t fight this tendency. People become less prone to myside bias as a function of the years they spend in higher education, even after controlling for age and cognitive ability (Toplak and Stanovich 2003). So it seems likely that kids will benefit if we expose them to diverse viewpoints, debate, and the tools of critical thinking.

One classic approach is to assign students to take turns advocating both sides of a given debate. Not only will kids practice perspective-taking, they will hone critical thinking skills. For more information, see my article about training kids to engage in formal, disciplined debate.

Researchers Geoff Kauffman and Anna Flanagan perceive a problem with many “consciousness-raising” social skills activities: They’re too preachy, and that tends to turn people off.

So Kauffman and Flanagan recommend a more subtle approach, one that embeds the social message in a fun, lighthearted game. To date, Flanagan has created two such games.

The first is a card game called the Resonym Awkward Moment Card Game, a party game that requires players to choose solutions to thorny social problems.

It has been tested on kids as young as 11 years old, and found to improve players’ perspective-taking skills. Compared to students in a control group, kids who played this game showed subsequent improvements in their ability to imagine another person’s perspective (Kaufman and Flanagan 2015).

They were also more likely to reject social biases, and imagine females pursuing careers in science. In addition, they showed more interest in confronting detrimental social stereotypes (Kaufman and Flanagan 2015).

The second game, called the Buffalo The Name Dropping Game, is intended for ages 14 and up.

Buffalo asks players to think of real or fictional examples of people who fit a random combination of descriptors (like tattooed grandparent, misunderstood vampire, or Asian descent comedian).

After playing this game, high school students showed increased motivation to recognize and check their social biases, agreeing more strongly with statements like “I attempt to act in non-prejudiced ways toward people from other social groups because it is personally important to me” (Kaufman and Flanagan 2015).

Both the Resonym Awkward Moment Card Game and Buffalo The Name Dropping Game are available from Amazon. If you purchase them through these links, a small portion of the proceeds will benefit this website.

For more information about boosting social competence, see my evidence-based tips for fostering friendships, teaching empathy, and encouraging kindness. In addition, check out my article about promoting preschool social skills, as well as my article about the potential benefits of playing prosocial video games.

Bakeman R, Adamson LB, Konner MJ, and Barr RG. 1990. !Kung infancy: The social context of object exploration. Child Development 61: 794-809.

Blake PR, Rand DG, Tingley D, Warneken F. 2015. The shadow of the future promotes cooperation in a repeated prisoner’s dilemma for children. Sci Rep. 5:14559.

Block K, Gibbs L, Staiger PK, Gold L, Johnson B, Macfarlane S, Long C, Townsend M. 2012. Growing community: the impact of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program on the social and learning environment in primary schools. Health Educ Behav. 39(4):419-32.

Cortes Barragan R and Dweck CS. 2014. Rethinking natural altruism: simple reciprocal interactions trigger children’s benevolence. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.111(48):17071-4.

de Albuquerque LR, Scheeren EM, Vagetti GC, de Oliveira V. 2021. Influence of the Coach’s Method and Leadership Profile on the Positive Development of Young Players in Team Sports. J Sports Sci Med. 20(1):9-16.

Domberg A, Köymen B, Tomasello M. 2018. Children’s reasoning with peers in cooperative and competitive contexts. Br J Dev Psychol. 36(1):64-77.

Flook L., Goldberg S.B., Pinger L., and Davidson R.J. 2015. Promoting prosocial behavior and self-regulatory skills in preschool children through a mindfulness-based Kindness Curriculum. Dev Psychol. 51(1):44-51.

Gibbs L, Staiger PK, Townsend M, Macfarlane S, Gold L, Block K, Johnson B, Kulas J, Waters E. 2013. Methodology for the evaluation of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program. Health Promot J Austr. 24(1):32-43.

Goldstein TR and Lerner MD. 2018. Dramatic pretend play games uniquely improve emotional control in young children. Dev Sci. 21(4):e12603.

Kaufman G and Flanagan M. 2015. A psychologically “embedded” approach to designing games for prosocial causes. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace,9(3), article 1.

Keil J, Michel A, Sticca F, Leipold K, Klein AM, Sierau S, von Klitzing K, White LO. 2017. The Pizzagame: A virtual public goods game to assess cooperative behavior in children and adolescents. Behav Res Methods. 49(4):1432-1443.

Kirschner S and Tomasello M. 2010. Joint music making promotes prosocial behavior in 4-year-old children. Evolution and Human Behavior 31(5): 354-364.

Lancy D. 2012. Ethnographic perspectives on cultural transmission/acquisition. Paper prepared for School of Advanced Research, Santa Fe, Multiple Perspectives on the Evolution of Childhood. November 4-8, 2012.

Lancy D. 2008. The anthropology of childhood: Cherubs, chattel and changelings. Cambridge University Press.

Legoff DB and Sherman M. 2006. Long-term outcome of social skills intervention based on interactive LEGO play. Autism. 10(4):317-29.

Ozer EJ. 2007. The effects of school gardens on students and schools: conceptualization and considerations for maximizing healthy development. Health Educ Behav. 34(6):846-63.

Pellegrini AD, Dupuis D, and Smith PK. 2007. Play in evolution and development. Developmental Review 27: 261-276.

Pellegrini AD and Smith PK. 2005. The nature of play: Great apes and humans. New York: Guilford.

Pollin S, Retzlaff-Fürst C. 2021. The School Garden: A Social and Emotional Place. Front Psychol. 12:567720.

Sevil-Serrano J, Abós Á, Diloy-Peña S, Egea PL, García-González L. 2021. The Influence of the Coach’s Autonomy Support and Controlling Behaviours on Motivation and Sport Commitment of Youth Soccer Players. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 18(16):8699.

Sharpe T, Brown M and Crider K. 1995. The effects of a sportsmanship curriculum intervention on generalized positive social behavior of urban elementary students. Journal of applied behavior analysis 28(4): 401-416.

Spinka, M. , Newberry, RC, and Bekoff, M. 2001. Mammalian play: Training for the unexpected. Quarterly Review of Biology 76: 141-16.

Stanovich KE, West RF, Toplak ME. 2013. Myside Bias, Rational Thinking, and Intelligence. Current Directions in Psychological Science 2(4): 259-264.

Street H, Hoppe D, and Ma T. 2004. The Game Factory: Using Cooperative Games to Promote Pro-social Behaviour Among Children. Australian Journal of Educational & Developmental Psychology. 4:997-109.

Teacher’s College, Columbia University. 1999. Conflict resolution for preschoolers. TC Media Center website. Accessed on 9/28/2015 at http://www.tc.columbia.edu/news.htm?articleID=4023.

Weiss MJ and Harris SL. 2001. Teaching social skills to people with autism. Behav Modif. 25(5):785-802.

White SW. 2011. Social Skills Training for Children with Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism. New York: The Guilford Press.

Portions of this article are adapted from an earlier work about social skills activities by the same author.

Image credits for “Social skills activities”:

image of children’s faces in a circle by Wavebreakmedia / istock

Image of preschoolers with musical instruments by Liderina / shutterstock

Content of “Social Skills Activities” last modified 9/2021

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 Michelle Garcia Winner's "Think Social: A Social Thinking Curriculum for School-Age Students" 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.

Soft skills or social skills for schoolchildren: 85% of success in life

Harvard and Stanford believe that a student's academic knowledge is only 15% of his success in 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.

A study of Fortune 500 CEOs found that long-term and sustainable job success is 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.

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?

How it is taught in a foreign school:

team events: games, performance, volunteer programs;
joint academic projects, when the project can only be defended by the whole team;
competitions between "Houses" for schoolchildren studying on a full board basis.

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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?

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?
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.

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.

MANAGEMENT

It 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 additional school activities?
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;
participation in numerous school events requires a variety of skills from the student, including the ability to organize an exhibition, holiday, performance, debate, 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 reach 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.
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 away from your phone or tablet and look around when you are driving?
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.
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.

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.

Teaching social skills to youth