Humans being social animals; we definitely can’t live in isolation; hence even your children need to understand the importance of social skills for kids as a vital aspect of early childhood training.
As someone who used to be an introvert and now an ambivert, I know how valuable social skills are for every individual, whether extrovert or introvert.
I have learnt that it is vital to build relationships because like it or not, no man is an island, we need people one way or the other.
As parents, it’s our job to prepare our kids physically, emotionally, socially, and in all ways to be well-rounded adults that can thrive in society when they are no longer with us.
In this post, we shall discuss several important social skills for kids, the reasons why these social skills are essential, how they can be helpful to your kids, and how you can develop these skills in your wards.
So let’s start first with knowing why social skills are essential.
Why Are Social Skills Important In A Kid?
You may ask, why are social skills important? Social skills are essential because they help individuals build and maintain close relationships and maintain lasting friendships.
It also allows you to thrive well with all people, despite differences in backgrounds, location, views, etc. Other benefits of social skills include:
- Strong and effective communication skills
- Building strong ties
- Enhances one’s ability to relate well with people
- It helps one to navigate through life with the right mindset.
How To Build A Child With Social Skills
To help a child with social skills, you need first to learn those skills you want to develop in the child. As they say, you can’t give what you do not have. So, it could be an excellent starter to evaluate yourself and rate yourself.
Then, to what extent do you show the skills you want to teach your child? For example, I struggled with creating and maintaining boundaries when I was younger.
So, now, I always try to read and learn more about setting boundaries to teach my kids how to maintain healthy boundaries properly. You can also learn to help a child with their social skills by:
- Modeling the right skills before your kid
- Use whatever they are interested in to teach them
- Ask them questions
- Repeated teaching
- Teach empathy
- Know your child’s limit
- Practice role-playing
- Involve them in house chores
List Of Social Skills To Teach Kids
There are so many types of social skills that everyone needs and for your kids, it is not too late to start grooming them.
In this section, I will be providing a list of social skills for kids you can impact from the easiest to the most difficult.
With that said, let’s dive into it and see a list of some of the types of social skills for kids you need to impart.
- Two-way communication
- Good manners
- Eye contact
- Seeing boundaries
- Sharing
- Respecting personal space
- Personal hygiene
- Active listening
- Nonverbal communication
- Managing emotions
- Self-control
- Conflict resolution
- Patience
- Following directions
- Cooperating with others
- Taking turns
- Ignoring distractions
- Knowing when to ask for help
- Calmness
- Making eye contact.
These and a host of other types of social skills you can teach kids. From this list, we’ll discuss 10 important social skills you must have to groom in your kids below:
1. Good Manners
Manners are a group of social skills that involve one behaving respectfully. They are grouped as one because they involve respecting others and respecting oneself, and as parents, this is one list of social skills for kids to teach your kids.
Good manners enhance healthy peer interaction. When your kids learn good manners, they earn respect and will be unique and stand out from others. Plus, it will help you raise a mature adult later in life.
Imparting good manners requires loads of teaching and allowing your kids to practice. My son who is two grabs things without asking permission or saying thank you.
I make sure I chant “say thank you” after giving him stuff. He doesn’t love saying it, but we have to keep at it so that he internalizes the good behavior.
As a parent, you should pay close attention to how your kids interact with you and your partner, their siblings, other kids, and adults alike.
Are they polite in making requests? Do they greet? Do they apologize? These will determine how well they have learned those social skills, “good manners.”
Also, take a retrospect of yourself. How mannered are you? Do you use magic words for others or shout at your partner? Are you rude when speaking?
Indeed your behavior will play a significant role in how well you teach good manners to your kids. If you want to teach your kids good manners, you and your partner should work on yourself and then create a mannered environment in the home.
Teach, correct, and keep teaching good manners to your kids. Their peers are not left out; ensure you also preach good manners to their friends.
Tell their teachers, coach, etc., and sell the idea of good manners to them. Soon your kids will adopt this social skill.
You can also try to keep visual reminders in the house teaching manners and get your kid’s books/games/movies that portray manners. All these are vital tips on how to groom social skills for kids.
2. How To Share What They Have
There is one quote by Anne Frank my Mum always tells us, “No one has become poor by giving,” and I intend to chant it to my kids also.
The truth is, not everybody loves to share. It may always seem better to enjoy what you have alone, but nothing beats that feeling of deep gratitude you get when you do not have something, and someone decides to share it with you.
Sometimes, your kids do not know the importance of sharing; they may not want to share with others, so as parents, another social skill you should teach your kids is to share.
Kids may have a hard time sharing because, at their age, they are more selfish and want everything to be about their needs.
As part of good social development, we should encourage our kids to learn how to share. Making it a practice in the home teaches them the importance of having this as one of the social skills for kids and adults alike.
You also have to make them know that it would make them bond well with people, see that it is a nice thing to do, and always see people help them when they share.
You can also engage your kids in games with other kids where they learn to share. Tell your kids that sharing allows them to get fair treatment and learn how to negotiate, make and keep good friends.
3. How To Express Their Emotions
Parents should aim to cultivate this social skill in their kids. Expressing your feelings isn’t just about saying what you want and how you feel.
It is about constructively and assertively saying how you feel, making your points known, and still respecting the other party in a world where people are rude and nonchalant.
I strongly advocate that you teach this social skill early. As parents, we should aim to teach our kids that they should freely express their emotions to us; fear, sadness, anger, etc.
Encourage your kids to say how they feel at any time. Parents should know that expressing feelings is not a sign of weakness.
Especially when disciplining the kids, you should be careful not to treat your kids harshly when they display anger tantrums or guide them for acting babyish when they are scared of seemingly “little things” like a bug or an unusual sound.
Instead, acknowledge your child’s emotion, but help him channel it constructively. For example, if your child throws angry tantrums that irk you, pick him up and take him to a place where he can’t harm.
Allow him to cry, scream or wail, and when he is calmer and has a clear head, explain to him that you understand his anger but shouting, screaming, or fighting people wouldn’t take away the bitterness.
Instead, he can take a deep breath or even cry to let out the emotions or talk to you or any trusted adult about it.
Also, when you notice your once lively child is quiet, try to probe to ensure that he expresses his feelings to you. To ensure that they develop this along with other social skills for kids; you need to have a strong parent-child relationship with your child.
You also need to avoid being overly critical, pay attention to your child’s needs, give the appropriate response, take encouragement, disapproval, cheer, praise, etc.
It would be best to let your child know when you are emotional, like happy, sad, disappointed, angry, etc., and learn how to manage your emotions correctly.
When your children see that you express your feelings, they will also know how to express their feelings.
Also, encourage your kids to engage in activities like singing, dancing, telling stories, acting, imaginative plays, etc.
4. How To Manage Their Emotions
While you teach your kids to express their feelings, you also need to teach your kids how to manage their emotions effectively to express them right when overwhelmed with emotions.
It would be best if you taught them how to exert control over their emotional state. To do this as a parent, you first need to know how to manage your emotions first.
Taking emotional training courses is one course I strongly advise for parents/caregivers. Teaching your child the social skills of emotional regulation and managing emotions starts from infancy.
First, create a loving atmosphere of love and discipline. Calm your infants when they are emotionally tense and for toddlers, be supportive in angry tantrums or outbursts.
Please encourage them to use positive outlets for their anger, like walking outdoors. If your kids have a row, separate them and let them have a time out to think through what they did.
When they are calmer, talk to them about the outburst and suggest better ways to calm their anger instead of fighting.
If they have issues with their siblings, encourage them to politely say how they feel rather than fighting or keeping malice.
For unresolved conflicts, tell them to always speak to their partner or older adults if they have resolved conflicts with a friend and give an equal dose of love to all your kids.
5. Listening Skill
Listening is an important social skill for kids that you should learn to build in your kids.
Many kids, even adults, find it hard to practice active listening; hence they miss essential instructions and necessary details from a conversation.
To properly grasp what a person is saying, one requires focus. This can be challenging for young kids because they are distracted and inattentive.
Active listening will help your child answer questions correctly, develop their ability to comprehend things, grasp vital details, follow instructions, build comprehension skills, understand gestures and, process information.
There are many more benefits and you can develop your child’s listening skills by always having a conversation with them from an early stage.
Please do not assume that they would not understand; ask them questions to ensure that they comprehend, and ask them to rephrase what you have said in their own words.
Please encourage them to read stories and ask them questions. This way, they can develop active listening.
6. Communication Skills
As your kids learn to listen, your kids should also learn how to communicate their thoughts effectively, and it could be verbal and non-verbal communication.
Your child’s communication skills are built if you learn to communicate with your infant early on. Do not undermine that they are infants, and overlook it. Don’t wait till they’re older.
Your communication (verbal and non-verbal) will make the child learn and develop vocabulary and the appropriate gestures when he is older.
For young kids, teach them to communicate by using eye contact, gestures, sign language, etc. For older kids, it would help if you talk to them often, ensure they use correct tenses, ask them questions, and let them reply.
Let them carry out activities like singing, reading, and drama. Encourage them to speak before their mates and talk before other people to overcome stage fright.
You can also teach non-verbal communication skills to your kids by watching movies created without words or tuning down the volume of your TV when you watch something. Then, let your kids explain to you what he thinks is happening in the movie.
7. Following Direction
This is another one of the essential social skills for kids. It is closely linked to active listening because a child who can actively listen will find it easier to get clear instructions and follow directions.
In addition, as a sign of growth and independence, your kid will start doing things on their own. Now, you should begin to guide them so that they can do the right thing.
Also, it may be easier for kids to follow directions at home, but they might find it challenging to do the same outdoors, so as a parent, you need to help them develop this skill well before leaving home.
Tips that can help you develop this skill in your kids:
- Converse with your infants from an early age even if they do not reply.
- Start assigning age-appropriate tasks to your toddlers as soon as they are 2 years old while giving them direction.
- Make it simple, e.g., “Go and get a cup.”
- “Fetch me a plate”.
Kids can easily misunderstand instructions, especially if it is rushed or in a multi-step direction. So, while talking to your kids, be slow and precise; do not rush your words.
8. Respect For Personal Space
Kids love physical interaction. So you could spend all day playing with your kids, and if you do not stop, they may likely want you to go on forever.
While, it is essential to give hugs, throws, tickles high fives, and any other physical interaction you wish to have with your kid, it would be best if you taught them that it is essential to keep personal space.
While they get to understand the concept, teach them that they should also respect others’ personal space.
This is an important social skill for kids since it would help them successfully maintain relationships later in life. They won’t be irritating or bothersome to others which would help them avoid things like peer rejection.
It may be tricky to teach your child this social skill because you do not want your child to feel neglected or unloved, but it’s necessary.
For example, when your child becomes too clingy and cries that you carry him all the time, tell him that you have to drop him and do so.
Then explain that mummy cannot always carry him because he will be a grown-up someday, and Mummy won’t carry him when he is a grown-up.
Also, tell your child when you are busy, that you are busy at the moment and that they should please give you some time and check back later.
If you are cooking for example and your child is standing too close, explain to them that you won’t be effective if he is too close to you and should give you some space.
9. Setting Boundaries And Respecting Them
Your child needs to learn how to keep boundaries as part of an essential social skill for kids. It would make them know how to set appropriate limits for people and make them safe in their own space.
Since boundaries are crucial, you need to help your kids not ignore them and not be rigid when setting boundaries so that they do not become people’s pleasers or anti-social.
It is not always an easy task, but you have to work on it as parents. To teach any skill, you have to model such skill to your kids.
So, learn how to effectively create boundaries with people if you do not already know how to do so or if you struggle with setting boundaries as a parent.
So, go to a class, read books, and seek advice from people to learn the art. Also, now is time to pay close attention to your child’s wishes. Respect it, and do not be overly clingy when they don’t want tickling, hugs, or cuddling.
Also, teach your kid to ask permission for things from you and others, teach them to respect people’s boundaries, and tell them to ensure that people ask and take permission from them too. It will make others respect them.
Tell your kids that it’s okay to avoid hugs, tickling, and other displays of affection if they are uncomfortable with it. Also, they shouldn’t force affection on other people, if they feel uncomfortable with it; with all these, they will know how to set and keep healthy boundaries.
10. Patience
We know that this is one social skill for kids that many kids lack, even adults. If you promise your child something, they will keep asking you for it till you get it done.
Impatient kids want things done their way, do not know how to delay gratification, love cutting corners, do not like to take turns, and can be extremely difficult to work with.
They may also grow up as adults who cannot handle disappointments, or become cheats and have a dubious, nature, etc.,
Hence, you need to teach your kids the value of patience. Do not favor one child over another; if they have to wait in line, ensure that they do so. Teach your kids to take turns in using the bathroom.
Introduce to them the concept of a wish-list where they would write their wishes in a list before you can decide which is best to grant, rather than to give them everything they ask for; model patience, with your kids also.
Conclusion
All the tips listed above are vital social skills your child needs to learn and learn early. If you have not already started teaching these skills, I advise that you make plans to start right away, as the benefits of social skills in kids cannot be overemphasized.
They may be slow at adapting or seem stubborn when they don’t immediately do but everyone struggles with learning a new habit, so be patient with them.
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