Making friends can be a challenge for some children and adults with special needs. They may lack confidence or have difficulty developing the necessary social skills. But there are ways you can help teach your child to overcome their fears and make friends.
Friendships and social interaction are extremely important for self-esteem. But it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Making friends takes practice, and you can help your child by rehearsing social situations and role playing ahead of time.
When you are teaching the social skills to make friendships, try breaking them down into small, easy steps. Give plenty of encouragement for each goal your child reaches.
The following tips have been contributed to Scope by parents of children and adults with special needs. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, they may give you some ideas to help support your child in making and keeping friends. We’d also love to hear from you, so please tell us your own tips too!
1. Learning To Ask Questions
I coached my daughter in how to ask questions and make conversation by playing a role-play game with her. I pretended to be a famous reporter interviewing her about her Moshi Monsters collection. Then we’d swap characters. She actually liked being the famous reporter!
2. Picture Cards
Use picture cards that show a variety of emotions in faces and body language. This can help the person you care for interpret the visual cues for when someone is getting angry, bored, sad, frustrated or happy. Work up to using video clips of these emotions acted out.
3. Follow Their Interests
I include friends in my son’s hobbies. My son has had a lifelong interest in art museums, so we often bring along a friend. Another fascination is carnivorous plants, so I brought a group of his peers to the botanical garden to see the venus fly traps and pitcher plants.
4. Ask The Teacher
It can be worth asking your child’s teacher if there are children at school they seem to connect with. Keep these suggestions in mind for ‘play dates’.
5. Find an activity
Build play-dates around fun, interesting activities all children will enjoy. Think creative and prepare. I once gave each child a ball of pizza dough and had a pizza-making lunch. Bear in mind mainstream kids will probably love all the SN kit, sensory features, trampolines etc!
6. Invite friends home
Encourage friendships by inviting others to your home. The person you care for will usually be more relaxed in the home environment and will be more able to work on appropriate social interaction.
7. Know the limits
Sometimes I push my son to tolerate longer periods of socialising; but I also know how to make a hasty retreat when I see a shift in mood or agitation. When he was younger, I limited play dates to about 1 hour, but now he enjoys 2 hours. Being sensitive to his mood increases his interest in planning future play dates.
8. Review and re-boot
At the end of the day, talk about what you learned and what you would like to do next time. With friends, there’s always a next time!
9. Practice turn taking
My adult son still struggles with sharing, taking turns, going ” first” or “last”. I try and practice and prepare him as much as possible at every opportunity, be it dishing up at the table or getting into the car. It definitely helps with his social skills.
10. Peer Mentors
A good mainstream school should set up ‘peer mentors‘ or ‘buddies’ for your child with special needs. Teachers should look for existing positive relationships other classmates have with your child, and identify someone who they can guide to help with encouraging appropriate communication skills.
11. Raise Awareness
It’s good to be honest and upfront about the needs of the person you are caring for. I noticed my daughter was getting stared at in Brownies so I did a short talk to the pack about her disabilities and how they affect her. It really helped.
12. Parallel Play
Don’t knock parallel play – its a start! My son with ASD doesn’t like to interact much but he will happily engage in the same activities alongside other people. It can fuel interaction or friendships – especially if they’re is a common shared interest.
13. Identify Goals
Think about short-term and long-term development of social skills. Break down those stages of development into tiny steps and create the “scaffolding” to support each step for the person you care for.
In the early years of a child’s life, they will learn a lot—from crawling to walking, babbling to talking, and so many other things. They learn words, numbers, shapes, colors, items, people, the list goes on and on.
Your little one will learn who their parents are, who their siblings are, who their grandparents are, and who their friends are. They will begin to learn how to interact with the many different people in their life, whether it is by staring at them, showing them their favorite toy, or trying to communicate through attempted words. Young kids begin to understand that communication is key to getting anyone to understand them. When they cry, someone will take care of them. If they point at what they need they will most likely receive it. And eventually they will learn how to talk and communicate with people more effectively.
It is amazing how much youngsters learn in the first few years of their life. They are able to learn most of this from observing. But social interaction is one thing that they can learn from by experiencing it for themselves. There is a lot that can be learned from social interaction, and children can learn these things from observing others interacting with each other. Children need social interaction to develop their social skills.
Social interaction is important for young children. When they are young, they will be able to learn from social experiences and develop different social skills based on those interactions. As we get older, it is hard to learn from interaction with others and change our ways. A shy person is not going to suddenly change their ways and stop being shy because it is hard to make new friends, they may try to be more outgoing and they may be slightly successful, but they will most likely not be the most outgoing person in the room. A child who learns how to interact with others properly will have an easier time in social settings throughout the rest of their lives.
It is important for your children to interact socially, whether it is through play with their siblings, befriending neighborhood kids, or getting enrolled in an early childhood development center. An early childhood development center is a great choice because they get social interaction while learning, exploring, and growing. At Yellow Brick Road Early Childhood Development Center, your kiddos will get the best developmental education while learning and growing in a social and interactive environment.
At Yellow Brick Road, we understand the importance of allowing children to interact with others, have the chance to be independent, and explore their curiosities. We encourage our students to learn on their own and from others, while also helping them with their growth and development.
Social interaction is a huge part of our culture at Yellow Brick Road. Your kiddos will be able to interact with other kids as well as our friendly and encouraging staff. Why is social interaction so important for young kids? In this blog, we will go over some of the reasons why children need social interaction.
Social
Skills
Social skills are an obvious reason why social experience is important for children. We use our social skills on a daily basis throughout our entire lives. We need to learn how to interact with others and develop the skills to do this successfully. Through social interaction we can learn how to act and react to others. We figure out how to empathize with others and see things from their perspective. This is important to do in all social interactions we have, which is why it is important to develop this skill at a young age. Kids will learn how show respect to others and how others expect them to act, and they will be able to develop different skills from these lessons. Social cues are important for everyone to learn, including your youngsters.
Communication Skills
Along with social skills, communication skills are another important lesson that kiddos can learn through different social interaction. Communicating is another thing you do daily, so learning how to properly communicate at a young age can help throughout a child’s entire life. Kids will develop the skills to communicate with others, express their feelings, and will also gain a sense of self.
Ability to Work With Others
As your children learn and spend time at Yellow Brick Road working independently and with others, they will learn how to effectively work as a group. Teamwork is an important skill to learn, and while many adults prefer working on projects alone, teamwork is used in many different aspects of life, including parenting. Kids will learn how to communicate their ideas, how to compromise, that sharing is necessary, and they will understand that they are working together to achieve a common goal. This also is present while playing with other children. They will have to work together for their game to work out; they may not realize they are learning, but the fact is they are gaining the ability to work effectively with others.
Different Perspective
Interacting and playing with other children will allow your children to see the world from another person’s perspective. While many adults still struggle with this, your children will learn the basics as they listen to other kids’ ideas and what their imagination can come up with. Two kids playing pretend can be a pretty magical thing. Next thing you know they will be battling dragons on top of the world’s tallest tree while they wait for the help of the noble unicorns. You never know, maybe adults can learn a thing or two about perspective and imagination from kids. As your children gain the ability to see things through a different person’s point of view they are more likely to be able to understand their responses and respond better themselves in different situations.
Building Friendships
This is another great reason to encourage your children to socially interact with others. Friendships are a special thing, but for children, especially at school, friendships offer them a sense of belonging and allow them to develop a self-esteem. Children need friendships throughout school to help them feel like they are part of a group and are liked. They will feel more confident if they have friends, and this could also help them be more outgoing. Building friendship will also help to further develop their social skills, understanding of social cues, communication skills, and ability to work with others. If they fight, they will learn how to deal with issues better and figure out how to handle this tricky situation.
Social interaction is important for kids. They learn, develop, and grow a lot from being around others and having social experiences. Allowing your children and encouraging them to be more social and have social interactions can help them to develop these important life skills. At Yellow Brick Road, your children will get plenty of social interaction, both with other kids and our staff. They will also have time to work independently and explore what interests them.
At Yellow Brick Road, we work hard to give your children the education they need to learn and develop the important skills they will need throughout life. Enroll your kiddos today and help them experience more social interactions and develop these important skills. Contact us with any questions you may have.