Social Skills and Environments: Part 2

Family Picnic
Laforet

What is the best way to help our children develop socially?  How do they develop the social skills they need to enable them to interact appropriately with others in different situations?  How do they learn the skills which facilitate communication with others?  How do they learn to choose what would be positive social activities to be involved in?  How do we teach our children to respond positively to the needs of our society?

I guess the first thing that is important for us to remember is that being reserved, or shy, by nature is not a bad thing.  Not enjoying being part of large crowds is not a problem.  It is ok to search for social situations and activities that involve smaller groups, or even one on one.  On the flip side, it is equally ok for people to enjoy large crowd social activities and enjoy participating in more of society than naturally reserved people would.  As parents, we need to tune ourselves in to the social needs of our children, and whether they are naturally reserved, enjoy their own company or are outgoing,  and then find avenues to best meet those needs.

The second thing of importance is for us to build a positive social family environment.  This includes the immediate family at home together, and also includes what kind of social activities and environments your family will be involved with as a family.  This will include things like your entertainment and leisure habits, TV/Movie/Computer/Media/Music habits, how you talk to and communicate with your children and whether you encourage whole family friendships or allow your children more independence and freedom in choosing friends, and will include how you choose your friends.  This will change as your children grow into young adulthood, as young children primarily only need their own parents and extended family, whereas it is important for our teen aged children to grow into a widening circle of community and experience.

The third thing to consider is what social skills you believe are important for your children to develop and what social activities will benefit them, and your family as a whole.  These skills can be taught and developed naturally as situations arise in life and community, or you can create a list for yourself and deliberately set out to teach these to your children.

I have been wandering about the world wide web searching for ideas of social skills are considered important.  This is not an exhaustive list, but should be enough to get the thinking juices going in thinking about socialising our own children.  Five main areas of social skills include: basic interaction skills; making conversation; building and maintaining friendships; empathy; dealing with conflict.

Basic interaction skills:

can include things like making eye contact; smiling when greeting people; showing appropriate body language; basic politeness and showing interest in others.

Making conversation:

includes taking turns when talking; listening and showing interest in what the other person is saying by things like nodding and smiling; the ability to make small talk; using humour appropriately; knowing when to disclose personal information and when not to.

Building and maintaining friendships:can include skills such as approaching people; saring decision making and the ability to negotiate; showing appropriate affection and appreciation; maintaining contact; being supportive and thoughtful; allowing times of distance and closeness.

Empathy:

includes the skills of noticing other peoples feelings; experessing concern for others in appropriate ways; being sensitive to others feelings and perspective.

Dealing with conflict:

includes the skills of being able to say what you feel without being aggressive or personal; being able to negotiate and discuss a conflict calmly and rationally to come to an agreement about a solution.

Our society is set up in a way that places peer relationships and popular culture as the main factors in the socialisation of our young people.  However, research and educational philosophy have understood that the most important and fundamental factor in children developing competent social skills is in fact their parents.  Even though this fact is only given a nod in educational practise.

Find a child competent socially (regardless of whether they are outgoing or reserved by nature; regardless of whether they go to a school or are educated at home) and you will find nurturing, responsive, loving, stable, involved parents.  You will find parents who talk to their children about values and relationships during their daily lives, who take a problem-solving approach to day-to-day problems.  Parents who endorse positive and relevant strategies and who encourage their children to think through problems.  Parents who reflect a positive, resiliant attitude toward social setbacks and who will intervene on their childrens behalf when necessary.  Parents who relfect positive social skills themselves.

One of the Family
Frederick George Cotman

I would love to know how you help your children's socialisation in your family.  Would you care to share?  If you have a lengthy response, leave a link here in the comments to share your blog post with us.  I will share some of our experiences in my next post.