Teaching Children Social Skills
Teaching children social skills is one of the most important things parents must address with their developing children. This includes social skills such as sharing, taking turns, and allowing others to talk without interrupting. Children typically learn these skills by observing how others in their environment handle social situations at young ages, however, as life becomes more complex for children, parents need other avenues to turn to in order help them with teaching their children social skills.
What We Teach Children Today is “Out of Balance”
We spend a great deal of time pushing kids for academic success or athletic accomplishment yet spend little time teaching children social skills. While academics and athletics are valuable skills, social skills are skills that will set children up for a lifetime of success by teaching them how to make friends and how to be successful in their career. Parents need to spend more time emphasizing social skills, but have trouble fitting the time into their busy schedules.
Teaching Children Social Skills With the Four P’s
Practice
Start teaching children social skills by encouraging them to practice appropriate behavior. Not sure what lessons you need to teach? Boost Kids can help your child practice their social skills by giving them the tools necessary for self-guided learning. The Boost Kids CD-ROM shows them the appropriate behaviors and then you can reinforce them by working with your kids with the Boost Kids Flash Cards.
Praise
Praise or reward your child for practicing. Boost Kids does make the learning experience fun for children by using videos of real kid actors, however, kids do need more encouragement and encouragement can be a very important reinforcement system for practicing.
Point Out
Once your child has begun reviewing the Boost Kids lessons, make sure you show them applications of the lessons in the real world. Most children do not notice when you are waiting to take your turn in a conversation or waiting patiently in line at the grocery store, however, by pointing out those real life examples it will reinforce the necessity of the skills you are trying to teach.
Prompt
While your children are learning the new social skills, prompt their attention to areas where they can use that behavior appropriately.
How BoostKids Can Help:
BoostKids is a program that can help increase a child’s confidence by teaching social skills to children and building their character. BoostKids has been and is currently being taught in schools, non-profit organizations, and after-school programs. The program is now available as an at-home training program for children and their parents. The key training tool of the BoostKids program is an interactive CD-ROM that shows kids the right-way and the wrong-way to handle social situations. They learn from real kid actors in real-life scenerios!
For more information about what’s included in BoostKids, click here.
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By Charlie Copp - Executive Director of Boost Kids
About the author: Charlie Copp is the executive director for BOOST KIDS, an interactive CD ROM-based program for kids ages six and up, that teaching children social skills and strong character across the nation. His work with BOOST KIDS confirms what Copp has always believed: that kids and teens are hungry for character-building life skills, and with them gain the confidence needed to succeed in the classroom, on the playing field, in their interpersonal relationships, and on the job.
