*How to Improve Your Child’s Social Skills is a guest post written by Samidha Raj at PlanetSpark.*
We all think that children’s lives are easy. But are they really? With problems, such as teasing, bullying, unpopularity, fear, etc., their confidence may take a serious hit, which, in turn, affects social skills in kids. But with some simple and interesting activities, parents can turn that around and raise a confident child.
Read on for some very helpful tips to develop and improve social skills in kids.
Improve Your Child’s Social Skills
Encourage Eye Contact
Good eye contact shows the confidence of the speaker. Therefore, to improve communication skills in kids, encourage kids to look into people’s eyes while talking. Also, teach them how to interact with each person when addressing a group. This is especially a critical lesson in public speaking for kids.
You can try out games, such as a staring contest. You can also encourage play where they tell their dolls and toys stories looking into their eyes.
Leverage Their Interests
To improve social skills in kids, it’s important to first let them learn through activities they like instead of forcing them to be a part of social situations that may be uncomfortable for them. Find out what interests them and encourage socialization with like-minded people. For example, for kids who like singing, you can organize a Karaoke night and invite their friends over. Slowly, you can help your kids socialize with those of varying interests.
Create an Interactive Environment
It’s very important to develop interpersonal skills at an early age. So, create an interactive environment for your child and help them nurture their friendships. You can host playdates, take them to playgrounds, school events, and birthday parties, organize short trips with friends and their parents – basically things that would encourage your child to interact and have fun at the same time.
When kids mingle with others, they will naturally observe and learn, which is critical in laying a strong foundation for social skills in kids.
Engage Kids in Fun Activities
Kids love fun activities such as role-play conversations. So, take advantage of that and create make-believe situations where you can pretend to be someone else, for example, their class teacher or a kid in their gym class. This would help you understand how they behave in similar social situations and correct them wherever necessary.
You can also ask them to play a character and involve lessons on body language, such as making eye contact and smiling.
Teach Empathy
Empathy is very important for developing social skills in kids. But it is difficult for children to understand others’ perspectives and react correctly. So, begin with helping them expand their imagination. Ask them to put themselves in various scenarios and build a conversation around each. For example, if your child sees someone getting bullied at school, ask them to imagine how they would feel had they been in a similar situation.
You can also make good use of their screen time by asking them how a particular character in the show or movie is feeling.
While all these tips are very important for developing social skills in kids, it is important for parents to know when to stop. Do not force your child to learn so many things so fast. Allow them to enjoy the process and they will certainly give their best.
Improve Your Child’s Social Skills, Author Bio:
Samidha Raj works as part of the content marketing team at Planet Spark, a platform that provides online classes to K8 learners on “New Age Skills” like, English Communication, Public Speaking, Grammar, Creative Writing, Debating, etc. She is passionate about empowering the youth by educating parents about the importance of 21st-century skills. In her free time, you can find her watching documentaries or animated movies and organizing game nights (board games are her thing)!
