Watching your child struggle to fit in or make friends is frustrating and sad as a parent. But fortunately there are various things you can do to help your child with their social skills. Good social skills will allow your child to enjoy better relationships with their peers and teachers. Plus it will help reduce anxiety and support their personal and educational development. They are skills that can be learned and nurtured as your child gets older, with practise and the right amount of effort. A senior school in Lincolnshire explores further below.
Follow Their Interests
Encourage your child to follow their interests, because it’s far easier to talk to others when shared hobbies can be discussed. Being part of an extra-curricular club of some description places your child around like-minded people who they will likely feel more at ease with. Essentially, the idea is to encourage your child to socialise with other children whom they have things in common with. This will help them with their confidence in building social skills. Sending your child to a day care such as Aurrum Kids Ballarat for a day or two a week during the school holidays can also be a big help as this can ensure they keep up their socialising with others their own age and are taken away from the comfort of their own home.
Role Play Conversation
If your child is struggling with starting conversations with new people, it might be worth role playing this with them. Teach them some things they could say to people to get a conversation going. Questions are always a great option, because they prompt follow-up questions that expand into a full conversation. Furthermore, demonstrating this with your child through role play will give you an opportunity to show them the ropes. Of course, you can also demonstrate this through your own conversations with others when your child is around to witness.
Talk About Feelings
Teach your child to empathize with others by exploring some scenarios and situations that might happen to others. Then you can discuss how that might make those people feel. As a result, next time they see someone crying, they might feel more comfortable offering a helping hand rather than awkwardly shying away from the situation.
Bear in mind that it will take time for your child to develop these skills, it won’t happen overnight. Social skills are improved upon over a lifetime, which is something you can remind them so that they don’t feel insecure.