Developing Social Competency in Young Children

By Christine A Schmidt

Early education creates an important foundation for academic skills, but social skills can be more predictive of outcomes into adulthood. Children who develop good social skills typically perform better in school, get their needs met in a socially acceptable way, and navigate the many groups and social situations that each day brings.

Developing Social Competency in Young Children offers practical strategies for families and early childhood care providers that help design intentional teaching environments so children can talk, problem solve, and build relationships with peers and foster social competency development in everyday moments such as reading books that address social skills to help children understand how to appropriately deal with others during difficult times.

The book includes a resource list of children's books that introduce a specific skill set that can be used in the home or classroom.

There is not a switch or a specific age when children automatically become socially competent. This book focuses on children ages birth to eight years old.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Redleaf Press
• Release date: Jul 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781605546544

Book preview

Introduction

What are social skills, and why are they so important? That’s a fair question. One might think that as children grow and mature, they will naturally learn how to interact with other people. The reality is, however, that social skills are not a birthright. Children do not automatically develop these skills. In fact, children often face situations they cannot navigate appropriately because they do not have the necessary skills, language, or previous experience.

Social skills are the tools we use to communicate to others how we feel and what we need or want. According to the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), Good social skills are critical to successful functioning in life (2002). Children who have strong social skills are less likely to engage in negative behaviors or experience challenging outcomes, such as substance abuse, bullying, teenage pregnancy, depression, and delinquency. They typically perform better in school, get their needs met in socially acceptable ways, and successfully navigate the many groups and social situations that each day brings.

Think of a time when you were caring for a child who seemed unreasonable, stubborn, or inconsolable. You may have thought, Wow, this child is having a bad day. That’s a natural reaction, but a more constructive response might have been to ask yourself, What is really happening here? or Why does this child always seem to have problems interacting with peers? Asking yourself what the reason for the behavior could be is a great way to determine what social skill a child might be missing—and, in turn, what you can do to teach the child that skill.

Teachers, caregivers, and parents of young children often wonder why individual children act in certain ways in social situations. Even children from the same family unit may act differently when facing the same situation. These differences are partly due to the fact that each child is born with a specific temperament. For example, some children are fearful and reluctant to try anything new, while others are feisty and go headlong into anything, believing they will do well. Still others are flexible, accommodating, and not easily angered. Temperament plays an important role in whether a child achieves or struggles to achieve social competency. Some children’s temperaments make it harder for them to navigate certain social situations. For this reason, learning social skills is a lifelong process.

Children learn what to do in various life situations by watching and learning from the people around them. During any given day, a child enters and exits many group situations. The social challenges that children face can change depending on the situation or environment. Within each environment are a variety of individuals and a variety of problem-solving options—and not all options are appropriate, even if they reward children with the desired results. Children interact with many people who may or may not have positive social skills. Often children lack the knowledge and experience to be socially competent in all situations. Even adults sometimes struggle with social skills. So when children watch others, they learn both appropriate and inappropriate ways of getting their needs met.

Because social skills do not just automatically develop, because children are prewired with unique temperaments, and because other people don’t always model good social skills, adults need to teach young children these skills directly. Who better to teach them than those who care for them? Adults who play major roles in the lives of children are in the best position to understand which skills children have and which they lack. Determining what social skills children need to learn, designing an environment that encourages development of these skills, and intentionally providing opportunities and activities to test and hone these skills form the foundation on which social skills can be built.

HOW THIS BOOK CAN HELP YOU FOSTER SOCIAL COMPETENCY

There are many ways to define the term social competency. This book defines social competency as a group of seven skill sets that enable children to interact with other people successfully so they can navigate the world around them. The skill sets, as described by educator and social psychologist Jim Ollhoff and educator Laurie Ollhoff (2007), are communication, coping, community building, conflict resolution, confidence, curiosity, and control. Each chapter will discuss a specific skill set and its associated skills. The book will define each skill, explain why it is important to the ongoing development of social competency, and describe how the skills in a set work together.

Within each chapter, readers will find intentional teaching strategies along with skill-building activities, environmental design ideas, and suggestions for staff and parent education. By using intentional teaching strategies and developing targeted activities, adults can model appropriate social skills and provide opportunities to help children learn these skills. Through practice and integrated activities, children will have opportunities and designated time to hone and potentially master these skills. The environment plays an essential role in helping children develop their social skills. It consists of three dimensions: temporal, interpersonal, and physical. (For more information about these dimensions, see pages 8–9 in chapter 1.) Each chapter examines the role of the adult in intentionally designing each environment and using purposeful teaching strategies within the environment to maximize a child’s success. This examination is followed by staff and parent education tips providing strategies for use in everyday life. These strategies can be shared in parent and staff communication venues and can serve as topics for staff meetings or trainings. Finally, each chapter offers a list of children’s books about the chapter’s skill set to use in the classroom or at home. Books can introduce a specific skill, provide stories to help children discuss their feelings and understand others’ feelings, or problem solve how children would handle a difficult situation. This list is just a sampling; a local librarian can assist in finding books appropriate for a child’s age, cognitive ability, and reading level.

While this book discusses the social competency skill sets individually, understanding that the skill sets seldom work in isolation is important. While one skill may be listed under a specific skill set, that same skill may also be needed in another skill set. The seven skill sets and their associated skills are interwoven. They work together to form a system that enables children to navigate the world around them and the social encounters of daily life.

The information in this book comes not only from my formal education in child development and school-age care but also from my thirty-five-plus years conducting observations, offering technical assistance to programs, and mentoring staff as a national accreditation manager, state specialist, trainer, and consultant to various education programs and organizations. This experience, coupled with many years of teaching both children and the adults who teach children, has helped me gather a wealth of knowledge about the social issues children face in their day-to-day lives and how adults respond to these issues. In addition, I conducted several focus groups with caregivers, teachers, and parents of children in early care and education programs (both centerbased and family child care), as well as primary school. These focus groups helped me understand and explain the challenges children face when they lack social skills. Members of the focus groups shared real-life stories that illustrate these challenges, and these stories appear in every chapter. These stories offer a window into the lives of children three to eight years old who are struggling to get their needs met appropriately. The vignetes show how a lack of social skills can manifest in everyday situations and activities.

Each child-serving program is unique in character, structure, and services offered. The children within each program come from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Lack of social skills is an issue that’s not limited to a specific geographical area, age, ethnicity, or culture. Being in tune with the children in your care can help you determine when children lack certain social skills. Remain proactive by creating activities and environments that support children as they learn and hone social skills, which are gifts they will use throughout their lifetime.

CHAPTER 1

Understanding Social Competency

WHAT IS SOCIAL COMPETENCY?

The Encyclopedia of Children’s Health (accessed 2017) states that social competence is the condition of possessing the social, emotional, and intellectual skills and behaviors needed to succeed as a member of society. Social skills are managed by the prefrontal cortex of the brain. The prefrontal cortex continues to develop until age twenty-five. Since the prefrontal cortex is still developing well into adulthood, it is easy to see why the process of developing and refining social skills is an ongoing one. These skills do not just appear; they take time to learn and master.

Children acquire social skills through interactions with individuals they encounter in a variety of environments. Children traverse many environments and interact with many people on any given day. A child’s ordinary routine may include being at home, child care, school, afternoon or evening activities, church, grandparents’ home, and more. Each environment provides the child opportunities to learn from other people.

Children are aware of all that happens around them, even if they seem engaged in other activities. Children watch adults and other children to see how they handle specific situations and what skills they use to get what they want. They watch how adults deal with conflicts between children as well as conflicts between adults. Children notice what occurred and how the adults reacted to the situation. They observe what strategies the children or adults used and how successful they were in getting what they wanted. While children are viewing such situations, they may not say anything to the adults in the room; rather, children store this information until they encounter a similar situation and want a similar outcome. Children remember the situation, the strategies used, and which strategies adults thought were acceptable and unacceptable.

Reacting quickly and negatively when a social conflict or other problem occurs with children can be tempting—especially when we have discussed the situation in question many times and we believe the children should know by now what the rules are. But children forget rules easily and need frequent reminders. What is more, we must be consistent with our responses to similar situations. If we are inconsistent, we send children mixed messages. Be aware of the message you send to children when you are dealing with other people. During every interpersonal interaction, we send messages about how we think other people should be treated, about what we consider appropriate behavior, and about what we think are acceptable communication styles. If children witness people being treated differently in similar situations, they become frustrated and confused. The following vignette offers an example of this confusion.

A preschool located in an elementary school was given specific times to use the school gym for an indoor large-motor play space. The teachers instructed the children to walk at all times indoors (except when playing in the gym) because the floors were routinely waxed and could be very slippery. Steven loved to run and ran all the time. This was an ongoing problem for the staff.

The preschoolers were entering the gym to watch the end of a basketball game before they took over the gym. Steven ran into the gym and almost ran into another child who was walking to the bleachers. The staff reminded Steven to walk in order to be safe and explained that if he chose to run again before playtime, he would need to take some time to remember the rule about walking in the building. A few minutes later, Steven ran up the bleacher steps, pushing and shoving on his way.

His teacher said, Steven, remember a few minutes ago when we talked about walking in the building? We said if you choose to run again, you would need to take a few minutes to think about the rule for walking in the building. Please sit here and take a few minutes to think about this, then come to me when you are ready to talk.

In a few minutes, Steven walked up to the teacher and said he had thought about it and was ready to talk. The teacher asked, Steven, what’s the rule about running inside the building?

He said, We need to walk unless we are playing a game in the gym.

The teacher then asked, Why do you think we have that rule?

Steven said, To keep me and my friends safe.

The teacher said, I think you’ve got it now, Steven. Let’s sit here until it’s our turn for the gym.

About five minutes later, a preschooler named Sara came running into the gym. She ran straight to the teacher. The teacher said, Hi, Sara, I am glad you were able to join us this morning.

Sara said, I am so excited! The doctor says I can play outside now, and I do not have to wear my brace anymore.

The teacher said, That is great news! We will be going outside this afternoon. Now we are waiting for our turn in the gym. This basketball game will be over in a few minutes.

Steven came up to the teacher and asked, Why doesn’t Sara have to think about the walking rule, like I did? She ran too!

This caught the teacher off guard. She was quiet for a moment and then said, You know, you are right. I should have talked to Sara about the walking rule. The teacher turned to Sara and reminded her of the walking rule, saying, Sara, I know you were excited about being able to go outside, but when we are inside, we need to walk. I am worried that if you run inside, you might slip on the floor and get hurt.

Sara said, OK, I’ll remember.

The teacher later explained that Sara always followed the rules and that this infraction was out of the ordinary for her. The teacher thought that Sara ran indoors because she was so excited about her good news. Admitting to Steven that he was right and that the teacher should have talked to Sara helped Steven see that even adults make mistakes. In addition, the teacher talking to Sara using the same words she used with Steven helped him see equality in the adult response to the same situation. The teacher’s good relationship with Steven allowed him to feel comfortable enough to call her out on the inequality of the teacher’s reactions to running indoors. Not all children would feel comfortable enough to challenge an adult in this way. Just because Steven always runs and Sara always follows the rules doesn’t mean that they should be treated differently when they break the same rule. This can send the unintended message that the adult cares more for one child than the other.

Young children are like mirrors; they reflect back via their own behavior what they see, hear, learn, and experience from adults. If children are immersed in an environment where yelling, hitting, and name-calling are acceptable, they will use these skills to get their needs met. Conversely, if conversation and collaboration are the tools used to manage conflict, these are the tools a child will use when conflict arises. Once children reach the developmental stage during which friends become very important and they begin to develop strong peer relationships, they become less dependent on adult interactions. Your role as a caregiver and educator of young children, then, needs to be that of a supporter, motivator, supplier, and facilitator of activities and behavioral examples that foster social competency. A key to fulfilling your role is observation. By observing how children interact with others in your program, you will know what social skills they need to work on. Once you have identified these skills, the next step is to intentionally plan activities, opportunities, and materials for children to learn and practice the skills.

A Child’s Environment

The environments adults create within early care and education programs and within family homes play a large role in developing social skills in children. Child development researchers define a child’s environment as the total of all things a child regularly comes in contact with. In the book Beginnings and Beyond: Foundations in Early Childhood Education, Ann Miles Gordon and Kathryn Williams Browne (2011) contend that children’s learning environments consist of three dimensions: temporal,