A child’s early years are not only a time for taking their first steps or saying their first words. It is also a time when a child is learning to develop their social and emotional skills to build their own identity and to connect with others.
Through interactions with family members, teachers and friends, children are taught about the social world. By participating in these interactions, a child also learns that they can influence the way other people feel about them, relate to them and bond with them.
Table of Contents
Why is social skill development so important?
Acquiring social skills plays a huge role in overall childhood development, including:
● learning language;
● establishing friendship groups;
● developing self-esteem;
● learning about how the world works; and
● handling conflicts with peers.
Babies are not born with social skills – they have to be learned. But of course, these skills are acquired at different ages as a child grows and develops. This means that our teaching of social skills
should also look different across different age groups. For a 2-year-old, it might be teaching how to ask for help or how to express feelings using simple words such as ‘I’m sad’. For a 12-year-old, it might be explaining why we treat others how we would like to be treated.
At Care Speech Pathology, we are specially trained to assess social skill development in childhood, and we have years of experience in supporting children to be excellent, confident communicators
during their early years.
What do we expect in infants and toddlers?
During a child’s first 2 years, their social skills are expected to develop in the way of:
● smiling and reacting positively to caregivers;
● showing affection to familiar people and pets;
● bringing items to ‘show’ other people;
● being able to play alone with toys; and
● imitating adults’ actions (e.g. chores)
What do we expect in preschooler’s?
As preschool begins and a child’s interactions with other people begin to expand, their social skills are
expected to develop in the way of:
● initiating interactions with other children;
● transitioning from independent play alongside other children to joint play with other children;
● working together with other children on a common activity; and
● enjoying simple group games such as “Simon Says” and “Duck Duck Goose”.
What do we expect in primary school children?
By 4 years of age and throughout the early years of primary school, a child’s social skills are expected to develop in the way of:
● pretend play becoming more social and children enjoying make-believe play with storylines and character acting;
● engaging in rule-based competitive games;
● developing knowledge of fair play and turn-taking with other children; and
● empathy and negotiation skills beginning to emerge as children may want to please their friends.
How do we support social skills as parents?
Children learn most social skills automatically, simply by observing the people around them. Automatic learning is the easiest way of learning, so we always want to encourage this where we can.
If you see your child use a new social skill all by themselves (e.g., greeting a friend when they get to kindergarten), make sure you tell them how lovely that was to see. This will let them know that you like what they did, and will encourage them to do the same thing again next time.
If you think your child might need support with a social skill, there are 2 things you need to do.
(1) Explain – tell your child about the social skill by explaining it clearly (e.g., ‘We need to say goodbye to people before we leave, otherwise they might be confused and wonder where we are’).
(2) Model – lead by example and show your child what you would like them to do (e.g., say goodbye to the teacher while waving, and say ‘Now Mrs Smith knows we’re going!’).
With the right supports, most children will learn social skills naturally and easily.
And remember – you are your child’s best teacher!
