How to improve children\’s social skills?

The book \”How to Build Your Child\’s Social Intelligence\” was written by psychotherapist Kathy Cohen. Children\’s social skills come from their family of origin and require training and guidance to improve. The author combines many years of practical experience and case analysis to summarize the key issues that children need to solve in the social field, and proposes scientific and effective methods to help children establish good relationships with others. relation. This time, we focus on 7 contents in the book about helping children improve their empathy. ① \”Understand\” Parents may be very concerned about their children\’s food, clothing, housing, transportation, learning and growth, but they are not very concerned about their children\’s social interactions. And social interaction is the most basic manifestation of children\’s empathy. In other words, small problems in empathy are likely to cause big problems in children\’s social interaction. It\’s a good idea to ask your child about social situations with other children. For example, \”Who sat across from you at lunch?\” \”Which child did you chat with today?\” \”What did you do during recess?\” Picture-based questions not only allow parents to understand their children\’s social scope, but also It can also make children aware of what is happening around them and understand the importance of interpersonal communication. After all, children generally pay more attention to inquiries from their parents. ②\’Reminder\’ Pictures alone are not enough. Children must be guided to think about other people\’s feelings and reactions. For example, you can ask him to think about the needs of others, \”How do you think other children will feel when they fall?\” \”What do you think Xiao Ming will think if you don\’t invite Xiao Ming to your birthday party?\” \”Why is that little friend crying at noon? Is it?\” Rethinking from a third party perspective can help children develop the buds of empathy. At this time, parents must pay attention and listen to their children to finish what they say, even if they think differently than you do. Otherwise, interruptions and denials from you will cause difficulties in judgment for your children. ③\”Rich\” Sometimes, children may be able to experience it, but they cannot express it. Parents must help them reserve richer and more detailed words. You can set a small theme for each week, such as angry, sad, happy, etc., and then transition to more difficult words, such as frustrated, disappointed, confused, etc. Before you can help your child express their emotions in clear words, you first need to be precise with your words. Because your children will observe, imitate and learn from you while communicating with you. If your mouth is full of: \”cow\”, \”I\’ll go\” and \”666\”, you can\’t expect him to have richer expressions. ④『Recognition』 Children are easily infected by adults’ expressions. However, they are still only vaguely identifiable and cannot match expressions with adjectives. For example, he may know that the adult is angry, but he may not know the degree of anger: anger, surprise, or dissatisfaction. Therefore, whether it is watching TV or in family life, parents should combine more actual expressions, help their children connect expressions with words, and explain the reasons behind the expressions. When a child can use accurate words to describe his or the emotions of the children around him, his empathy will have a reference. In addition to expressions, the language and actions that express emotions are also the focus of interpretation by parents. ⑤ \”Cue\” There are signals in social communication, but children cannot understand it yet. They often cannot tell the difference in tone. They may not limit others toControl their language seriously. For example, parents always emphasize not to run around on the road, but naughty children always disobey. They may also overreact when other children say no. This is very common in children. Basically, many social signals are like a layer of window paper for children, and parents should take the initiative to help them break them. For example, \”Xiao Ming hid the toy behind his back, which means he doesn\’t want to lend it to you to play with. Let\’s just play with our own.\” \”Xiao Kai is pulling his mother away, which means he wants to go home.\” Parents can understand this kind of child If you don\’t understand social problems, give them more explanations. ⑥ \”Response\” The dialogue between children and parents usually ends with the child running away. However, even if children are not yet able to understand the details of what others are saying, it is important for parents to encourage them to respond as if they understand. \”Imitate the gourd and draw the scoop\”, imitation is always the first step in learning. For example, when a child is disobedient and the mother is very angry, the father has to ask the baby to come over and apologize, and try to understand the mother\’s feelings through listening, nodding, caring and other expressions. For example, parents can regularly play some small games related to expressions to help their children deal with social problems in different situations. You can also design a chart to allow children to evaluate their social behavior. Use a smiling face to express good social behavior and a frowning face to express bad social behavior, so that his understanding of social interaction will become deeper and deeper. ⑦ \”Acceptance\” In addition to responding, the last homework for parents is to interpret, for example, why the mother is angry, why the kindergarten children cry and make trouble and want to go home, why the teacher says goodbye after school, etc. Only by interpreting the phenomenon clearly can the child understand the meaning of his response, otherwise he will really regard this response as a game. Only by understanding the words and deeds of the outside world from the heart can children accept them from the heart instead of rejecting them. Help children learn to tolerate and understand others, and their world will be broader. To sum up, while not letting your children lose at the starting line, don’t forget to improve their soft power. These methods of improving children\’s empathy are all based on methodologies in common scenarios and are very practical and effective.