Rules for Teaching the ABC’s of Social Skills

My Playmate

Although you have a role to play in teaching social skills to your children, it is often best that you play it unobtrusively. 

In particular, you must guard against embarrassing your children by correcting them too publicly and against labeling them as shy  in ways that may lead them to see themselves in just that way. 

Children, then, acquire social skills not so much from adults than from their interaction with one another. They are likely to discover through trial and error which strategies work and which do not, and later to reflect consciously on what they have learned.                       

Children are much more comfortable when they know the guide rules for handling the social amenities. It’s no more fun for the child to be introduced to a strange adult and have no idea what to say or do than it is for a grown up to go to a formal dinner and have no idea what knife or fork to use.

How do you teach social skills to you children? Leave your thoughts below.