When teaching our children healthy socialization skills, it is easy to get caught up in elaborate lessons. Unfortunately, this can pull us away from the fundamentals of what it means to build a relationship with another human being.
Teaching your child socialization skills can be challenging, which is exactly why we created this article. Let’s explore a few tactical ways to help your child socialize and build healthy relationships around them by bringing it back to the basics.
Encourage Mindful Eye Contact
Encouraging healthy eye contact is an important part of building communication skills and showing interest in another person. When practicing conversing with your child, try to practice what you preach! Put away your phone and put down any reading materials to help make distractions less of an issue. Focus on maintaining eye contact with your child and watch as they mimic the same behavior as you.
Ask Questions
Learning to ask questions is another critical part of learning healthy socialization skills. Try to establish a question-asking routine with your child to mimic this behavior. Anytime your child comes home from an event such as school, daycare, or a play date, make it a priority to ask questions about how the event went, what they did, and how the experience made them feel. Not only will this help teach manners, but it also displays how to show care for another person and practice empathy along the way.
Use Role-play as a Productive Teaching Mechanism
While practicing positive socialization skills in day-to-day interactions with your child is a great way to use yourself as a positive role model, sometimes, children respond better to more direct examples.
This is where role-playing can be used! Practice pretending to be an individual in your child’s life, such as a friend, grandparent, teacher, or friend’s parent. It is best if you use real names so that your child can feel as though the interaction is as authentic as possible. Be sure to let your child exemplify both roles so that they can fully immerse themselves in the role-playing activity.
Understand Body Language
Understanding body language can be tricky — even as an adult! However, learning these social cues can help your child better understand emotions and the feelings of those around them. Help your child understand body language cues such as shrugging, smiling, avoidance, and more so that their context clues grow stronger.
Enroll In Extra-Curricular Activities
Encouraging your child to enroll in extra-curricular activities outside of the classroom is a great way to help them step outside of their comfort zone and meet new people they would not normally gain exposure to. Try to enroll your child in activities that differ from their core school group, to foster new relationships and help them socialize with children who are different from them.
Encourage Conflict Resolution
Conflict is a part of growing up, and frankly part of everyday life! Teach your child not to shy away from conflict and encourage positive resolution skills. Make your conversations a safe space to bring up issues, both big and small, that your child is experiencing in their social life. This will help you to work on resolving these issues together, strengthening both your child’s social skills and your relationship.
