Teaching our kids social skills is part of our job

Some kids are born with high S.Q. (social intelligence). As babies, they smile at every human face. As toddlers they run to give everyone a hug. As school-age children, they find themselves favored by adults and surrounded by friends. They have a gift. They’re comfortable around people and make people feel comfortable around them. The average child, however, needs a little help in developing a good set of social skills.

Why It’s Important

Some people absolutely love spending time with others, while some actively dislike human company. Most of us are somewhere in between the two extremes.

Introverts, constituting about 50 percent of the population, don’t mind people, but just prefer doing things on their own. Whether it’s learning, reading, doing a craft, studying, developing a career, exercising or whatever, they’re happy to do it on their own. The introvert is satisfied with family relationships and maybe one or two friends.

Nonetheless, all of us need a social network, whether it be large or small. Human beings depend on each other for survival. We require emotional and physical assistance from our friends from time to time. Our lives are enriched by companionship, and we thrive emotionally when securely ensconced in our circle of caring companions. Research confirms that loneliness is bad for our health and our longevity.

As we all want our children to lead happy and healthy lives, it behooves us to foster their social education as much as we foster their spiritual, emotional, and intellectual well-being.

How Can we Help?

The “hands-off” philosophy of parenting has its limits. Although there’s no guarantee that efforts at helping children get along with others will yield lifelong loving bonds, we certainly can’t give up without trying.

Similarly, waiting for a child to grow out of rude and hurtful behavior toward peers is simply a way of allowing a youngster to practice and wire-in circuits for rude and hurtful behavior. For instance, allowing a six-year-old to tell a visitor “I don’t want to play with you,” followed by shutting the door in her little friend’s face, only helps that six-year-old learn how to be insensitive. Similarly, allowing a child to sit in his own little world in his room without ever joining the family for meals or activities, or without making an effort to reach out to a friend, strengthens his wiring for self-isolation while preventing the creation of wiring for social contact.

Children require adult intervention and guidance in the development of social skills as much as they require it for every other important realm of growth.

Skills to Build

Children need to learn how to initiate, maintain, and decline social interaction. In the same way that parents teach their kids how to swim or clean their rooms, they need to explain the rationale for the desired behavior and the steps involved in performing it.

It’s possible to explain even to young children that it’s important to build a social network (“We need friends to play with, do things with, share with, and help us, and Hashem made us in such a way that enjoying our friends and making them happy also keeps us happy and healthy”). We can teach kids that they don’t have to have loving feelings toward someone in order for that person to become an important part of his “network.” (“You’re going to really love only a couple of people who you especially connect to, but a social network also includes people you just like and even some people you like only a little.”)

Explain the difference between best friends, good friends, school or shul friends, and acquaintances, and the place and importance of each within a well-formed social network. “We make and keep friends by inviting people to do things with us, by helping them, and by treating them respectfully and kindly. When we’re not in the mood to play with someone we usually like, we say we’re sorry and that we’d like to do it another time. When we never want to spend time with a particular person, we’re careful to remain courteous; we kindly refuse overtures until the person realizes that we’re not interested in socializing.” Specific instructions are necessary and compliance should be followed up with acknowledgment and praise.

Whether a child ends up with a small or large circle of friends isn’t important. What is important is that her parents have offered her social education skills she can draw on throughout her life.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 765)