Inspiring Connections

Express appreciation for the things your children already do well.

Children who feel capable and valued at home are less likely to tolerate unhealthy peer relationships. Focus on your children’s strengths and create opportunities for them to use these skills more often. For example, invite your child to help with special projects, tell stories to a younger child, help a friend with homework, teach a neighbor to ride a bike, or fund-raise with a lemonade stand.  

Support friendships with a variety of peers.

When children have a broad circle of friends, they are better equipped to weather social ups and downs. Expand their network by encouraging play time with different classmates, as well as kids outside of school with similar hobbies and interests. Talk with your child about how to be a good friend and what to look for in others.  Role-play challenging situations together.  

Encourage your children to talk about their thoughts and feelings at home.

Keep the lines of communication open so that your children will feel comfortable telling you if they run into trouble with their peers. Spend time listening to your child’s positive and negative feelings without reacting emotionally or giving advice. Instead, ask questions such as What was that like? How did you deal with that? How can I help?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 7:37 pm and is filed under parenting elementary kids, parenting teens, social skills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.