Fun Activities to Teach Social Skills to Children

Social skills mean following social guidelines when interacting with others, but this doesn't mean such skills are innate. Numerous factors can affect a child's social skill development, including shyness, conditions like autism or Asperger's syndrome or damaging environments, such as an abusive family. While not every child is destined to be a social butterfly, engaging in activities that foster social skills builds a child's self esteem and ability to interact meaningfully with others.

  1. Social Skill Pictures

    • Identifying desirable social skills helps children understand appropriate behavior better than vague commands like "stop that" or "be good." Assign each child a particular social behavior, such as helping others, sharing, asking nicely before taking something and taking turns. The children draw depictions of their assigned behavior before explaining the skill and their picture to their peers. Encourage questions and discussion among the other students and offer your own addition to particular concepts if necessary.

    Skit Performances

    • Practicing correct social skills in a controlled environment empowers children with the knowledge for real world interactions. Two children act out a plausible situation, such as cutting in line or inviting someone to play. Remind everyone to use their words and manners before the performance. Afterward, ask the small group to describe the positive behaviors behaviors in the skit. For example, "he used his words to tell him he was angry and he didn't hit." Two more students act out a different scene and discuss the positive behaviors afterward. Repeat until all the children have a chance to perform.

    Practice Play Dates

    • Ask an especially precocious, socially mature child who is four or five years older to engage in 30 minute play dates with a few children who struggle socially. An older student, who understands the activity's purpose, becomes an effective role model and mentor who can engage in real life scenarios with the kids. For example, when a dispute occurs over a building tool the mentor could say, "Jack, you just grabbed that tool away from Alyssa without asking. How would you feel if she grabbed something of yours without asking?" Or, when the older mentor noticed two students taking turns she would praise the behavior.

    Reading Faces

    • This activity works well for children older than 8 years old who have the capability to recognize complex facial expressions and body language, not just happy, mad and sad. Each child receives a strip of paper with an emotion, such as ecstatic, confused or anxious. Students go around in a circle and act out their assigned emotion while others guess what she's feeling and offer appropriate response behaviors. For example, after identifying someone's expression as anxious, nervous or fearful the audience discusses responding with comforting words. Or, after seeing someone is ecstatic, discussing appropriate ways to share in a peer's enthusiasm without being overbearing.

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