Social skills are essential in helping children form positive and meaningful relationships with others, as well as navigate social situations. As a child grows up, they learn to read the facial expressions and body language of others, follow the rules of social interaction, take in others’ perspectives, communicate their thoughts and feelings, negotiate social conflicts and work together with others. Speech therapist Danica Tan highlights the development of social skills in young children and how adults can facilitate this process with different strategies and activities.
Social skills refer to a set of skills that people use to communicate and interact with each other. These include both verbal and nonverbal aspects of communication. Verbal communication involves the use of language, both listening and speaking, such as following the rules of conversation (e.g., taking turns, maintaining topic of conversation), using appropriate words and tone of voice, and seeking clarification when necessary. Nonverbal communication involves the understanding and use of gestures, facial expressions, eye contact and body language.
The development of social skills starts from birth, and continues through the toddler and preschool years, into school age and adolescent years. Babies smile in response to a familiar caregiver’s voice, attempt to imitate the caregiver’s facial expressions or actions, and discriminate between strangers and familiar people as they grow through their infant years.
As a child grows through the toddler and preschool years, they get more opportunities to interact with more adults and children. They then start to pick up the social rules of interaction (e.g., keeping quiet and listening when the teacher is speaking, waiting in line for their turn, etc) and behave appropriately in different social settings such as the classroom, playground and during playdates. They also get more adept in reading the social cues of others (e.g., people’s facial expressions and body language) and the environment and participating in conversations.
As a child develops their social skills, there are ways in which adults around the child (e.g., parents/caregivers) can facilitate this process.
1. Model prosocial behaviours through social play
Play is the universal language of all children. Through playing together with peers, the child learns important social skills such as sharing materials, taking turns, cooperating, perspective taking and negotiating conflicts. Parents can create opportunities for their child to play together with children their age through play dates with classmates or cousins and bringing their child to different social settings such as the playground or beach.
Young children are naturally egocentric, especially since their social skills are still developing. During play interactions, they can learn social skills that are crucial in getting along with other people through explicit teaching and modelling by their parents. Parents can model prosocial behaviours, such as appropriate ways of getting a peer’s attention (e.g., calling peer’s name or tapping peer’s arm), using polite markers (e.g., saying “thank you” when a peer offers help), or strategies to join in a peer’s play (e.g., helping a peer who is building a house find blocks of desired colour).
2. Use social stories
A social story is a narrative, often paired with visual aids such as pictures, that describes and illustrates a specific social situation that is challenging for an individual. It is not just useful for emerging social communicators who learn new information better when it is presented in a concrete manner (e.g., children with autism spectrum disorder or social communication disorder), but also helpful for neurotypical young children whose social skills are still developing. A social story teaches socially appropriate response or behaviour in response to a specific social situation, while simultaneously promoting self-awareness and perspective taking skills by emphasising how the individual and people around them will feel towards a behaviour displayed by the individual.
Here is an example of a social story on sharing:
3. Positive reinforcement through labelled praise
Labelled praise is behaviour specific. It lets the child know exactly what they are doing is right or liked by people around them. It is more effective than unlabelled praise as the latter does not inform the child what the prosocial behaviour is.
| Examples of unlabelled praise | Examples of labelled praise |
| – Good boy/girl! – Good/nice job. – So smart! | – You did a great job sharing the toy cars with your friend! – I like how you said “please” when asking your teacher to help you open your bottle. – You waited so well for your turn in line to wash your hands! |
The more specific or descriptive your praise is, the better your child is able to identify and understand what they have done well and should continue doing. Instead of saying “good job”, specify what your child has done well in, such as “good job in keeping your hands down and waiting for your friend to complete his turn in catching a fish”. It is also important that we are genuine in praising the child, and keep the praise developmentally appropriate for the child, such as using simpler language (e.g., simple vocabulary and short sentences) and a more animated voice on a younger child.
4. Provide the language to support social interaction
A child’s development of social skills is closely intertwined with their development and acquisition of language skills, both receptively and expressively. Children use language for a variety of purposes, such as to request desired items or assistance, ask and answer questions, negate an item or action, or comment on events happening around them. For a young child whose language skills are still developing, parents can model the words that their child can use in different social settings. For instance, if your child snatches a desired toy from a peer, model what your child can say to request for the toy appropriately (e.g., “I want the train please”). If your child attempts to comment on their peer’s play using gestures or sound effects (e.g., points at peer’s playdough and exclaims “Wow”), model what your child can say (e.g., “Wow, a flower”).
Promote perspective-taking skills and empathy
Perspective-taking is the ability to relate to another person by seeing things from the person’s perspective. It is a prerequisite skill in having empathy for another person. Understanding another person’s perspective is an important social skill that a child needs to have to form and maintain relationships. Perspective-taking skills enable a child to regulate or adjust their behaviour accordingly as they are able to pick up social cues (e.g., nonverbal behaviour such as facial expressions) in social settings.
Parents can facilitate the development of perspective-taking skills by encouraging their child to pay attention to the facial expressions and body language of people, as well as what is happening in the environment, then draw a relation to how someone might be feeling or thinking. Aside from day-to-day interactions with adults and peers, use storybooks and videos that are of interest to your child (e.g., a favourite cartoon character) to promote the development of perspective-taking skills. Depending on your child’s development, you can describe what is happening by labelling another person’s feelings and actions, or ask questions to guide your child in inferring a person’s feelings and intent.
For example:
- Look at daddy’s face, how is he feeling?
- Look at daddy’s arms, they are folded.
- The boy is looking at the cookies on the shelf. What do you think he wants to do?
- The girl is crying because she dropped her cake. What can her sister do to make her feel better?
The development of social skills varies from one child to another. However, with proper guidance from the people around them, and opportunities to learn and practice social skills in various settings, children increase their social competence.
References
Mason, S.A. (2013). Social Stories. In: Volkmar, F.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Springer, New York, NY.
Tahmores, A. (2011, January 1). Role of Play in Social Skills and Intelligence of Children. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences; Elsevier BV.
The Singapore Pro-Ed Chart (1996).
