Improving Kids Social Skills

 

 

Feeling alone and disconnected from peers is a distressing thing for a child to experience. And it’s not only the children who suffer. As parents, we also feel frustrated and hopeless about not knowing how to help your children make the friends they so strongly desire. Developing social skills and interacting with the world around them will be a critical part of their success and happiness, even more important than their academic results. 

 

Kids with ADHD often struggle to stay tuned in to their environments; they frequently misread social signals.  Misinterpretations may lead to overreacting to ambiguous social situations or can also lead to under-reacting. The kids who don’t see these signals may be insensitive to the feedback cues others are giving them, leading to anger from peers who feel that their ‘social hints’ are being ignored. 

 

• Talk to your child about the need for social skills. Discuss the importance of making friends and getting along with others. 

• Set a social goal with your child. 

• Carefully arrange a supervised, time-limited playdate for your child to spend with other children to practice newly learned social skills.  

• Choose play activities that are simple and enticing. 

• Record your child at home. Review these videos with your child to increase self-observation and awareness. 

• Help your child understand the motivations and feelings of others by observing out loud what others’ faces and bodies are telling us.  

 

You already help your child to develop social skills by modeling good social skills yourself and by creating situations in which your child can practice. 

 

 

Coach Benjamin Mizrahi. Educator. Learning Specialist. Family Coach. Father. Husband.   

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