Role Playing Activities to Teach Social Skills

Parents and educators looking for an effective way to teach children social skills should look into kid-friendly role playing activities. By having children assume different roles, role playing exercises show kids all sides of various issues. Fortunately, there's no shortage of educational role playing activities from which kids stand to benefit.

  1. Stranger Danger

    • Role playing exercises are a good way to teach children about stranger danger. For this type of exercise, a parent or child can assume the role of a stranger who pulls up in a car and requests a child's assistance in reaching a certain address. After the child offers the stranger directions, he should insist that she get in the car and accompany him to his destination. The child should adamantly refuse and promptly distance herself from the stranger. If the stranger continues to pursue her, the child should run and scream for help.

    Bullying

    • Bullying is another popular theme in children's role playing activities. One child can assume the role of a bully and pretend to hit or shove one of his classmates. The bully will taunt the victim to fight back, at which point the victim should walk away, call for help, alert the nearest adult, or some combination thereof.

    Drugs

    • Children can learn about saying no to drugs through role playing exercises. When performing this type of exercise, one child takes on the role of a drug dealer who offers to give or sell drugs to one of his classmates. When the classmate refuses, the drug dealer will taunt her, calling her scared and uncool. But the taunts should have no effect on the classmate, who will deliver a final firm "NO" and exit the scene.

    Gossiping

    • Role playing activities can help deter children from speaking ill of their peers. In this activity, one child pretends to spread vicious rumors about a classmate to one of his friends. After running out of gossip, he will ask his friend if he has dirt on any of their classmates. The friend will insist that he doesn't and, when pressed, will declare that it is shameful to talk about others behind their backs and that he doesn't want to be part of it.

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