7 Ways to Help Your Child Make Friends
Developing social skills in your child helps them in confronting the world. Although some kids are naturally more socially-adept than others, they still need to get acquainted with effective communication abilities while they’re growing up. 5-Minute Crafts is all-set to help you get started with making your kid more sociable.
1. Encourage eye contact.
Train your child to look into a person’s eyes when they are talking to someone. This promotes effective communication and develops confidence in them as well. You can try playing games like having a “staring contest” or asking them to talk to their toys or look into your eyes when they’re telling you stories.
2. Teach them empathy.
This can also be called perspective taking. Here you sit with your child when watching TV or a movie, and help them with identifying and understanding the feelings and thoughts of others. Try asking them something like, “What do you think the guy in yellow feels like right now?” And wait for their response. When you help your kids develop empathy, it roots for effective communication later.
3. Encourage them to express their emotions freely.
Once your kid understands how to identify emotions, they’ll learn to express and respond to situations as well. This is where learning greetings and responses comes in too. If your kid is shy, give them a comfortable space to express their feelings. As parents, interact with them every day and teach them kind words like “thank you,” “please,” etc., and include them in your conversations too.
4. Explain the importance of personal space.
You may want to teach your child about the value of having personal space. Everyone needs it, even they need it to have a comfortable environment to interact in. You can also enlighten them about appropriate ways to communicate with someone during social situations.
5. Play games with them.
Indulging in these activities promotes patience, the ability to take turns, negotiations about who’ll make the first move, adhering to the rules, and being a good sport no matter if you win or lose. So, apart from developing social skills in your kid, you tend to encourage a lot more within them when playing these games. You can play both indoor and outdoor games with them.
- Ensure that the game is appropriate for your child’s age.
6. Keep them prepared for advanced social skills once they’ve mastered the basics.
Once your kid has gotten the hang of expressing themselves with no fear, they can handle any complex situation with ease. Hence, expose them to effective communication mediums like negotiation, public-speaking, conflict-resolution, bargaining, and a lot more to help them confront the real world in the future.
7. Keep providing them with an environment to thrive in.
Keep your kids in good company and give them opportunities to communicate with different types of people. If your kid is shy and lacks social skills, you can indulge them in activities like playschools, sports activities, hobby classes, and many other ways to interact with others. This helps in the development of interpersonal skills as well.