Teaching your Child Social Skills

Teaching your Child Social Skills

There are many benefits to having excellent social skills, and it is advisable for you to teach your child social skills. Children learn best from a young age, and long term success in their lives depends more on social skills than their academic strength.

If you find that your child is often ostracized by his peers and unable to interact normally in social situations, you need to step in to teach them how to interact easily with others. This can be done through daily interactions with your child, as they learn by example, imitating how you react to situations. One of the best methods to teach your child is the Social Autopsy method.

This involves sitting down with your child and analyzing what went wrong, and what can be done about it. The key to this method is in helping the child identify the link between their behavior and the end result, and how changing their behavior or actions can lead to a more favourable or preferred outcome for them. Guide your child into being able to independently identify the problem and possible solutions, and how to spot and prevent such problems from occurring again.

Another problem parents commonly face is their inability to discipline the child. This will lead to a child that is uncontrollable, and such behavior will usually result in rejection from their peers. This also makes it difficult for the parent to implement the social autopsy method, as they have little or no control over their child, and are unable to guide them in the right direction.

Often out of frustration, parents may simply avoid the problem or administer punishments that are overly severe. In such cases, you as the parent need to lay down the ground rules in dealing with your child. This will help both of you understand how to interact with each other, especially with regards to disciplinary issues.

Sit down with your child to work out the ground rules, and explain why they are important. These should be clear and well defined, so that there is no ambiguity or confusion. The next step is in working out a rewards and punishment system. Spell out that good behavior warrants rewards, as does misbehavior. There should always be a clear link between the infraction and the punishment. This will teach them that for every action, there is an equal and corresponding reaction.

The next time a disagreement or fight breaks out, such as when there is a need to share or speak uninterrupted, step in to help your child develop the appropriate social skills. This will often involve instilling a sense of self control for your children, and they learn best by watching you, so make sure that you set a good example!

Raising Children Fairly and Equally

Most parents don’t like to admit it, but parents typically have a preferred child among all of their children. As a result, parents often do not raise their children equally. While this favoritism is obviously not fair, some parents over compensate by trying to raise their children equally in order to be always fair. Unfortunately, this opposite of favoritism is equally not fair.

Here is a common example. Let’s assume a couple has two children. One of their children is very good in school, and the other child is not. It is common for parents to send both of their children to equivalent colleges, while ignoring the fact that one child deserves better while the other children might not want or deserve to go to college.

Another example is with sports. One child may be exceptionally good in sports, while their siblings are not. However, their parents typically push all of their children in after school sport activities if a single child shows interest. If a child is talented in playing music, the child’s siblings are often sent to music classes as well.

As a result, parents try to achieve the same interests and results with all of their children, even though some siblings are often incorrectly pushed in activities that they are not interested in. Unfortunately, this seldom works.

It is never easy to raise children, but parents must be dynamic enough to raise each child differently. While some parents are luckily enough to have similar children, most siblings have diverse strengths and interests that must be nurtured and developed independently from their siblings.