Children's Social Skills

1. Be Polite and Kind

When children's are kind, courteous, and respectful, people enjoy being around them and reciprocate with the same behavior. Be polite to your child. If your child hands you something, say "thank you" to him. If you ask your child to do something, always preface it with a "please". Practice saying "please" and "thank you" with your child from a very young age. Those two simple terms will become a way of speaking for him. Manners need to be taught and teaching your children manners gives them "lifelong survival skills". For kids to develop values that essential to being courteous, they need to see those same qualities in people whom they respect, parents have the power to exert powerful positive influences.

2.  Join In and Play

It's fun to make friends and play with others, but it's not always easy to do. You have to make an effort, and you have to know the rules like ask before joining in, take turns, play fair, and be a good sport. Games help children experience how to lose, how to win and playing games with friends and parents gives them the support they need to still be willing to try again. Children who play with their parents develop broader social skills, especially when they play in a positive and peer-like manner. Children who play socially with same-age peers are at an advantage when they enter daycare and preschool. These advantages are increased when children maintain these social-relationships over the long term, thus making good friends.

3. Listen And Learn

The first few years of a child's life are key to the development of speech, language and cognitive skills. For this reason it is important to create activities and strategies that give them all the stimulation, positive role modeling and human contact that they need. For a normally developing child learning is easy and creating opportunities for learning is also not difficult. Through play and simple daily interactions and experiences we can help the child acquire new language and skills. Knowing how to listen is essential to learning, growing, and getting along with others. Simple words and inviting illustrations help children develop listening skills, understand why it's important to listen, and recognize the positive results of listening.

4. Respect and Take Care of Things

Everything has a place. Things last longer when we take care of them. Respect, responsibility, and stewardship are concepts that even young children can relate to because they have things they value. When children are first beginning to help out around the house it is important to focus on their effort, not how well the task is completed. Encourage the children's to pick up after themselves, put things back where they belong, ask permission to use things that don't belong to them. Kids can do a lot of chores at an early stage, including getting clothes to the laundry or cleaning up after dinner, put toys away, fill pet's food dish, put clothes in hamper, wipe up spills, pile books and magazines.