Social skills are critical for children's success more than academic skills. Parents must model positive social behaviors like friendliness. It's important to teach children to respect others, acknowledge people, and handle awkward social situations. Parents should avoid harsh criticism and labels, instead focusing on having a positive outlook. For shy children, forcing interaction isn't effective - empathy is better, and reassurance can help them focus on others. Learning social skills happens through peers as well as at home, so supporting friendships provides interaction opportunities for skills to improve. Most children learn through trial and error without need for worry unless serious problems occur.

1. Developing Your Child’s Social Skills – The Key to Success
Believe it or not, your child’s social development will be critical to their success in life
– even more so than their academic skills or intelligence. It’s obvious right? Anyone who has
dealt with any kind of customer service will always remember the best and definitely the
worst! And it seems that there are always those people – child or adult – who are naturally
good at socialising. These socialising skills are often honed as a child and for many (though
not always) it’s the experience of being a student that really helps define what kind of person
they become.
But nowadays many students struggle. They do not know how to handle social
situations, hold a proper conversation, deal with bullying or even hang out with friends.
While your child doesn’t need to win any popularity contests, the key social skills such as
being able to listen to others, learn how to take turns, being responsible for your actions and
getting along with people are fundamental to succeed in a world emphasising social norms.
While social skills for children and teenagers may differ, they all fall under the category
of being responsible and considerate for others. Children need to learn how to follow rules,
follow steps, ask for help and ignore distractions. Teenagers must build upon these skills by
learning to set personal goals, identify and change self- defeating behaviours, handling anger
constructively, being assertive about his or her needs and resolve conflicts peacefully. While
it’s all very well and good to naturally expect children and teenagers to eventually learn these
skills, actually instilling them is actually a very different story.
We learn our first social skills at home from our parents or guardians. Modelling
positive social skills includes being friendly to strangers, offering help to others and treating
you child with respect, no matter how thin the ice is that they’re walking on! Dr Markam
writes on Aha! Parenting that teaching your child that people are important is key. By
praising your child, brainstorming ideas to solve peer problems and not allowing your
children to disrespect anyone whether intentionally or unintentionally is very important. As
children get older you may need to be more explicit about insisting that they acknowledge
both children and adults alike when in their presence. Pre-teens and adolescents also often
need to be taught how to deal with situations that feel awkward to them.
Another helpful tip would be to avoid labelling or harsh criticism. Instead of saying
“That’s such a rude person!” instead “Wow, I guess he’s having a bad day” is far more
constructive and reinforces a positive outlook instead of focusing on the negative. Positive
statements encourage children to view others optimistically and have a good attitude to social
setbacks and believe that they can be improved with positive effort.
If your child is naturally shy, forcing them to interact is only going to have the opposite
effect. Empathy is far more productive and sometimes it takes time to become used to
interacting with others. Accepting that nervousness is a natural part of life (and as an adult
you often feel it too) reassure your child that focusing on others rather than yourself is
allowed. Avoid the self-fulfilling prophecy, if you keep emphasizing that your child is shy,
they’ll become even more so.
The home is the first location to learn social skills, but a large portion of social skills
are learned from peers too. Supporting and encouraging friendships gives chances for
interaction and therefore improved social skills. Even playing with you on a friendship-like
level encourages your child to feel like they are good play partners and thus children become
more eager to play.
But when all is said and done, the chances are that your children are learning social
skills the way most people do, through simply trying and failing and trying again. There’s no
real need to worry or intervene unless any serious problems occur, (for example if your

2. child’s teacher has shown concern) as most children are normally socially clumsy and
insensitive at times.