The Importance Of Social Skills In Children And Adolescents
All adults need to use our social skills daily, whether to express a need to our boss, solve a problem with our partner, or empathize with a friend’s problem. When someone does not use appropriate social strategies, we notice it instantly.
These abilities are not innate, but rather we acquire them throughout our lives, beginning to develop in childhood. The early situations that children face involve interacting with others, in spaces such as family and school. However, the development of social skills does not end there: later, as adolescents, they must adapt to contexts of greater abstraction and complexity, also demanding the use of strategies to relate to others and to themselves. Next, We will see what these skills are and why they are important for both the child and the adolescent to develop them
Social skills are those behaviors that allow the person to express their own opinions, desires or attitudes in a manner appropriate to the situation. Many authors agree that the ultimate goal of social skills is resolving interpersonal conflicts so exercising them is vital for adaptation to the environment.
Generally speaking, a person with social skills can be seen as someone who is able to communicate assertively. This would involve clarity when expressing your ideas and emotions, but also being able to listen to others and internalize what they have to say about a certain situation. On the other hand, a person who lacks some social skill may behave in an overwhelming or hostile manner, imposing his or her ideas about reality over others; or, on the contrary, being docile, that is, accepting the conditions imposed by other people even when disagreeing with them.
We are not born knowing how to communicate with others to resolve conflicts. When acquired through learning, childhood is a critical stage for teaching social skills Of course, the way in which they develop are different, since the meaning that the child makes of the demands of the environment are different from those of the adolescent or adult.
Many interpersonal skills are observable in the family context or prior to school. Some very early practices, such as asking an adult why something is happening or expressing a certain need or preference for a certain item (for example, a food or a toy), already denote that the child is making use of these skills. He also uses them when he manages to initiate or maintain a play situation with another child or adult, since this interaction involves exploring the limits of the rules of the game, or understanding the emotions of peers around the playful activity; something that will take the form of empathy.
Besides, he play with another It’s more complex than it seems, since, different from solitary play, this involves symbolization and exercise of roles that enable the understanding of the social world. Thus, it is important as adults to encourage children to participate in spaces for interaction and play.
A set of skills needed for school
Then, the child will need to use social skills to function appropriately at school, so he or she will have to carry out appropriate behaviors such as greeting, asking and answering questions, criticizing and praising, expressing opinions or resisting group pressures. . These social skills are of such importance since the child, during this stage, is capable of establishing friendly relationships as he has developed a concept of himself with respect to others. In this sense, A key indicator of social skills is a child sharing toys or food with other children (which, interestingly, is a skill they acquire before they even go to school).
Cooperation is essential to understanding whether a child is accepted or not by their peer group, and that is why they learn when actions such as aggression are acceptable or not. For this reason, some children who have not developed cooperative skills tend to constantly attack and be rejected by others, in contrast to those who use their social skills to defend themselves from others, initiate new friendships, maintain them and resolve conflicts. Social skills are, consequently, vital for adaptation to the school context.
Social skills to face the challenges of adolescence
For its part, adolescence requires more complex social skills since their challenges are different: they adopt critical attitudes towards social norms, they face adults’ demands for more appropriate behaviors, and interaction with peers takes on a more complex nature. protagonist dye at this stage.
The adolescent shapes his identity by interacting with his peers, seeking social acceptance and belonging to the groups in which they participate. In accordance with these characteristics, scientific research has shown that social skills such as consideration of others, self-control in social relationships and leadership are key to adapting to the challenges of this stage.
An adolescent who finds it difficult to bond with others may be particularly withdrawn, adopting this alternative as he or she is unable to establish limits with respect to his or her peers. On the other hand, the aggressive behaviors of some adolescents also denote the insufficiency of social skills such as emotional regulation or empathy. A teenager who behaves in this way could be intolerant of others having an opinion different from his, becoming quick to anger or responding in a hostile manner, without considering the consequences that such behavior could bring
Therefore, as adults it is important to encourage moments of dialogue with adolescents during this stage of development so that they notice the dynamics of their behaviors. Likewise, a psychotherapy process could help the adolescent develop social skills to improve their interpersonal relationships.
