5 Ways To Develop Your Child’s Social Skills – Parenthood
Social skills are a set of behaviors that allow us to cope with our environment, while relating to others in an effective and satisfying way.
These abilities are essential because they bring us closer to others. We are social beings, whose contact with others helps us to feel our belonging to the group, and it is fundamental for the full development of our personality.
Within the education system, the development of these skills is encouraged, in order to avoid possible problems of loneliness, disruptive behavior or disorders resulting from a lack or poor learning of social skills.
Type of social skills
Social skills are often divided according to the resources that the person needs to implement them. In other words, there are necessary social capacities and others more complex. The former are those which require the least resources and are therefore easier and faster to acquire. They serve as a basis for the following ones.
There are many, but we will present them in groups:
- Trust. In this group we find self-esteem and self-control. These skills are essential because they will help your child to believe in his own abilities and to be able to manage himself emotionally and behaviorally.
- Communication. Here we find assurance as the ability to defend one’s own opinion in a non-aggressive and effective manner; conversation, which refers to the ability to listen to and respond to an interlocutor; and persuasion, as an example of a skill in crafting a discourse that tends to influence the speaker.
- The connection. In the latter group, we find empathy, the ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions and those of others; and presence, understood as how we make others feel.
Within each group, and each type, we give examples of social skills.
As for adversity, you would hardly endure it if you did not have a friend who suffered for you more than yourself.
-CICERON-
5 methods to develop social skills
How can you help your child develop their own social skills? Follow these five methods:
- Learn the emotions. Help your child name the emotions. Allow him to see your own emotions in you and let him recognize them in himself. The ability to recognize, understand, and deal with emotions will help them develop empathy and learn ways to help others deal with their emotions.
- Encourage social interactions. Children need a social environment that helps them to engage in interactions with others. Trust them to do it and help them feel safe in these cases.
- Recognize successes. Feeling your support and pride will make him believe in himself. When he does something that you don’t like, tell him so that he understands that it is the act that you don’t like and not him.
- Look for cooperation situations. Encourage them to do group activities that help them feel included and find ways to solve problems that require the participation of all members.
- Promote independence. The autonomy is an ability that your child should acquire through you. Feeling that there are activities that he can and should do on his own will help him develop self-confidence.
What to avoid …
First of all, avoid worrying about whether or not your child will be on the right track. He will find himself connecting with those around him in a natural way, so he only needs you to facilitate his interactions and help him when he does not know what to do.
It is not necessary to overprotect it. Conflicts exist in life, as well as difficult problems to solve and complicated emotions to deal with, and he has to cope with them as well. Allow him to put a name to what he feels and help him look for possible solutions.
Respect it. Your child deserves to be loved for who they are, so cherishing and respecting them is key.
