Coronavirus pandemic has not been easy on anyone. Schools and public places are shut and everyone is expected to stay at home. It has affected the development of children in many ways. It's been a long time since kids have seen their friends, gone down to the park or interacted with someone outside.
Socializing is an important part of growing up. Children learn a lot of social skills through their relationship with peers and interactions with the outside world. The early years of a child's life are critical in developing social skills.
Here are some fun and easy to do activities that can help you work on your child’s social skills.
1. Arrange visual play-dates Peer interaction is extremely important for children. However, due to the pandemic, there is minimum peer interaction and barely any playdates. But one thing we are thankful for is technology. Decide on a theme for the play-date, it can be something related to Arts and Crafts like finger-painting, or just the plain old’ Clay Doh. Hop onto any video conferencing platform such as Zoom or Google Meet. As long as children are able to look at their friends, share their work and communicate, we are good to go!
2. Play scavenger hunt: You can get the whole family involved in this one. Hide a few special items, such as gifts if it's an occasion or you can use even normal items and hide them all over the house and leave some clues behind. It will be a fun Sunday activity for the family and siblings. Perhaps, there can be a big gift at the end. This will initiate social skills such as teamwork, being a good sport and cooperation.
3. Ask the family to send letters: Pen pals may be a thing of the past but it is something we can use as a Social Skills activity too. This will also inhibit good relations with family members. Perhaps the child can exchange letters with their favourite aunt or cousin. This will enable good written communication.
4. Have dinner together as a family: Whether it is setting up the table together or even helping out in cooking, involve your children in all steps of having a successful family dinner. This may enhance skills like turn-taking, following directions, ideal social behaviour and sharing.
5. Play charades: Charades is an extremely fun game! You can play the regular charades where the child will have to act out or guess a word, movie or even an emotion. You can play charades with almost any lexical item! It will be a fun time for you and the kids. This will improve their use of facial expressions, turn-taking skills, expressive and receptive language, picking up cues, reading body language.
6. Read books with social stories:
Reading books that have appropriate social lessons will not only improve the child’s problem-solving and reasoning skills but also give them an opportunity to look at social situations in a more relatable way.
We have also created a Workbook for Social Skills that your loved one can practise from the comfort of their homes! https://www.sounderic.com/product-page/social-skills-worksheet
Our Social Skills Program is for children who have difficulties with social skills. To know more, check out https://www.sounderic.com/social-skills-program
To learn about 10 social skills your child must know, you can check out https://www.sounderic.com/post/facts-about-stuttering-in-children