What are social skills?
Social skills are the skills we use every day to interact and communicate with others. These skills include verbal and non-verbal communication such as gestures, facial expressions, and body language. Whenever you interact with people, you use some form of social skills.
Read about Pragmatics Milestones.
Why are social skills important?
Social skills are important and necessary for children to establish and maintain deep, positive, and healthy relationships. Many of these skills are needed to know how to behave in different social interactions. Having good social skills allows kids to make friends, engage in conversations, deal with conflict, problem solve, and show empathy.
Things to look for in a child struggling with social skills:
- Does not consistently use eye contact
- Difficulty sharing
- Does not engage in appropriate conversation (starting a conversation, turn-taking during conversation, staying on topic, appropriately ending a conversation)
- Difficulty using appropriate body language (standing too close to someone)
- Difficulty understanding jokes and humor
- Difficulty understanding gestures and facial cues
- Lack of empathy