TEACHING CHILDREN HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS
Children develop at different rates, however all children need to develop the skills necessary to make friends and to be a friend. During your childcare activities watch the children to see see how they react to each other.
For example: Does one child always want to be ‘first’? Is another child shy? Is there a child who is bossy? Be aware if this behavior is effecting a child’s ability to make friends.
The following are some of the social skills children need to develop.
IMPORTANT SOCIAL SKILLS CHILDREN NEED TO MAKE FRIENDS:
COMMUNICATION
• Children need to learn how to carry on a conversation.
• Teach your child to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ by always modeling the behavior and by praising your child when they say it.
• Teach your child to look at the person who is speaking to them. Make eye contact with the children and smile often when you are talking to them.
• Teach the children conversations starters such as, “Hi, my name is____, can I play with you.”
• Let the children know that they will not always be ‘first’. Good friends take turns and share with their friends.
PROBLEM SOLVING
• Give children opportunities to make decisions. They need to learn that there are consequences to the decisions they make.
For example: A child wants to keep their sweater on and it’s a hot day. The consequence is they may be hot and should have made a better decision.
• Talk to the children about the decisions they made and what the consequences would have been had they made a different decision.
• When a child makes a good decision, let them know you notice it.
• Help them look at decisions from different perspectives.
• Let children know we all make mistakes. Acknowledge when you make a mistake.
• Have many age appropriate puzzles, projects, and books available to the children. Encourage children with games and activities that strengthen problem solving skills.
• Model cooperation skills. Show the children how this benefits everyone who is cooperating.
EMPATHY
• Learning to make friends requires the children to learn how to be sensitive to the feelings of others.
• Learning to identify feelings and putting a name to the feeling is essential for a child to learn empathy.
• Talk to the children about how they are feeling and talk about how they think the other child may be feeling.
For example: One child calls another child a name. The other child is crying. Help the child who was calling names to identify how the other child is feeling.
• Praise the children when they share, or say something nice to another child.
• When reading books to the children talk about how the characters are feeling. Ask what made them feel this way?
When teaching a child social skills it is important that you model the behavior for the child. Children copy what they see, so make opportunities to model good social behaviors.
For example: Sharing- point out occasions when you are sharing with the children. Point out occasions when you see another child sharing, and always praise a child when they share.
The social skills your child learns now will have an impact on their ability to make friends throughout their lives.
RESOURCES
: http://www.ehow.com/how_7797316_teach-kids-make-friends.html
Nobody Likes Me: Helping Children Make FriendsBy Lisa M. Cope
http://www.education.com/magazine/article/helping_children_make_friends