Friendships are such a wonderful and special part of life. From memory making to going through the highs and lows with your peers makes life so much richer. As a child, learning social skills and how friendships fit is a huge learning curve as they go through their childhood and find their ‘people’. As a parent, how do you connect and how do you teach your kids basic social skills and about what a great friendship can be?
Today Janine is joined by Caroline Maguire and in this episode they discuss:
How do we teach our children social and emotional awareness in a fun and play filled way? Eventually our children will become adults so when they walk out into the world, we want them to step into their lives as aware and in control of their emotions as possible.
In this episode we discuss:
The transition to preschool to elementary school can be such an anxious time for both parents and for the children. There’s a lot of unknowns to get them ready for and sometimes we think there’s lots we have to do to prepare them for starting. Today we discuss what you can do to help reduce anxiety for your little one with nursery practitioner, Caroline Allen.
In this episode they discuss:
Being able to have a conversation is an essential social skill to have. Your child will need to be able to start conversations if they want to get to know people, make friends, or play with others. It can be hard to think of things to talk about when you don’t know someone. Here are some ideas to help kids start a conversation.
Sometimes parents will say they have a hard time getting their kids to open up or talk with them about things. I think a great way to connect with your own children is to create a family book club. Reading a book together shows that you think reading is important and an enjoyable past time and, while you’re discussing the book, your child can practice conversation skills and potentially talk about things that are happening in their own lives. Here are 3 strategies you can use to help start your own book club:
Spending time together as a family is such an important thing to do, especially in this day and age when family time can be so limited and fractured. It’s a great way for families to connect, to get to know one another and for adults to model good social skills for the kids. Kids who have a hard time connecting socially benefit from learning how to play games, how to set them up and how to manage winning and losing in a gracious way. Our family loves to play games whenever we get a chance (which is almost daily), and we’re really enjoying them, so I thought it would be a good idea to blog about 5 more family games. I wrote this blog post a few months ago about family games for older kids, these games are aimed at preschool and early elementary school aged children.
I read this book several years ago; I loved it then and I continue to recommend it to parents as a great guide to understanding the world of girls. I also saw Rosalind Wiseman speak in person several years ago, and I found her to have a down to earth, practical and reasonable approach to working with kids in these tough relational situations. She doesn’t claim to have all the answers or say that these things won’t happen. But she does have some ideas of how to work through things and is great at explaining things in a way that parents understand.
I found this great resource for teens, families and educators on twitter, anniefox.com. I really enjoy her podcasts and I watched this one recently that is right in line with my thinking about the importance of play. She spoke with a brain development specialist and educator, Deborah McNelis. The highlights:
I finally got a chance to watch Temple Grandin’s TED talk from 2010. I first heard about Temple Grandin a few years ago when I watched the HBO movie about her life. I found it interesting and insightful and I’ve wanted to learn more about her. I haven’t had a chance to read any of her books yet although they are on my reading list. She has a lot of interesting things to say about children on the spectrum as they get older and enter the workforce. Here are some of my takeaways:
Book Review: Best Friends, Worst Enemies Understanding the Social Lives of Children by Michael Thompson, PhD and Catherine O’Neill Grace with Lawrence J. Cohen, PhD
This book is a thorough examination of children’s social lives, from infancy through dating. The authors explore more specifics of how children develop friendships, manage and work through conflict, group dynamics, teasing and bullying. The only thing I think is missing in this book is that the authors do not delve too deeply into LGBT issues, and I think that adds a whole other dynamic to social lives, friendship and dating. Here are my highlights from the book:
Several people have recently recommended that I read this book, so I was eager to do so. How this book was even written shows a great determination by Naoki to share his story. The author can’t communicate verbally, but instead tapped out the words using an alphabet grid, where he points to the letters and spells out his answers. This in and of itself is pretty incredible, but then he articulately describes what it’s like to be autistic. It was a powerful read, but a couple of things really stuck with me. He talks about how neurotypical people assume that people with autism want to be alone and by themselves, and it makes you think twice about your interactions with people who seem like they want to be by themselves.
Recently, I’ve been using videos to help teach during my social groups. It’s a wonderful way to be able to talk about a lot of different social skills and social thinking. I always preview what I’m going to show the kids and think about what our focus will be. I will often pause the video in the middle to have a conversation about a scene we’ve just watched. It’s always fascinating when I watch the same video with different groups, it often leads to some very different group discussions. Here are a couple of examples of videos I’ve used with kids.
One of my colleagues let me know about this TED talk by Amy Cuddy about body language. I found it fascinating to think about the fact that not only can our minds change our bodies, our bodies change our minds. We can fake having positive powerful body language and it changes the way we think. Two quotes I love from this video are:
“Fake it til you become it” and “Tiny tweaks can lead to big changes”
Play dates are a popular way for kids to get together and hang out, but some kids struggle on play dates. If you think your child may have difficulty on a play date, it may work best to have a first play date with a new friend at your own house. Your child may feel more comfortable in a familiar environment. You’ll be able to keep an eye and ear out during the play date so you can step in if things start to break down. Here are some helpful hints when setting up and hosting a play date at your home.
