Social Skills for Kids: From Making Friends and Problem-Solving to Self-Control and Communication, 150+ Activities to Help Your Child Develop Essential Social Skills

by Keri Powers-Pye

Help your children develop essential social skills—including groups, one-on-one interactions, and virtual communication—with these 150 easy, fun activities to teach your kids how to socially succeed.From taking turns to making eye contact to staying engaged during conversations, developing appropriate social skills is an important factor for kids to be able to succeed in school and life in general. But how can you tell if your child is really making progress while you read the same stories, have the same conversations, and chaperone the same playdates? The answer is to add some variety to your child’s daily activities with these 150 exercises specially designed to keep your child (and their friends) entertained, all while teaching them effective social skills. In Social Skills for Kids, you’ll learn everything you need to know about how social skills develop in children and what you can do to support their growth. In this book, you’ll find games to encourage them in group settings, activities that you (or another caregiver) can do alone with your child, and ways to make the most of virtual interactions for social skill development. So whether you’re looking for new activities to entertain a few friends during playtime, searching for fun (and educational) games you and your child can play together, or even interested in ways to include people you can’t physically visit, Social Skills for Kids has all the tools you need to help your child develop the social skills they need to succeed.

Genres: Parenting

255 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 15, 2021

Reviews

[Alondra · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this book may be directed towards parents or adults living with children, as a teacher, I loved this book and would like to buy a copy for reference. Below are a couple of great aspects of this book.

First, there’s the organization of the book. Each chapter included an overview of the topic (ex. Active listening, communication, empathy, self-control, etc), in which the author describes the goals and mindsets aligned with each key term. Then, the author goes through the when, how, and why of the topic (which I found very helpful for providing context or rationale for older students/children learning about these strategies). And then there are the actual strategies! The target age for each strategy varies. This book would be most beneficial for grades PreK - 5th grade, but there were strategies that you can mature by changing terms and scenarios. Some of this book and the recommendations are formulaic, but this is something that I respect and like since it keeps things consistent and more memorable (ex. IDEAL method). Highly recommend to educators and families!

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Social Skills for Kids" describes fun activities that teach social skills like active listening, understanding body language, and effective communication. The author started by explaining what social skills are usually present at different ages. She then described some activities suitable for young kids (3+) and worked up to activities for progressively older kids (6- or 7-year-olds). There were also a few things suggested that you can do with 1-2-year-olds to help them develop. There were activities like teaching how loud to talk in different situations, using descriptive language, and giving affective instructions to someone else. For each activity, the author explained the purpose, targeted age, how many people were needed, how to do the activity, and some questions to ask afterward to help the child process what they learned. The directions were easy to understand. These activities were either fun games or interesting activities that kids will probably be willing to try and aren't too tricky to do. Overall, I'd recommend this book to people wanting creative ways to teach social skills.

I received an ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

[Denisa Ostas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is such a brilliant tool for parents and teachers. In each chapter you can find a short introduction to the skill presented (active-listening, self-control, cooperation, problem-solving, empathy etc) followed by activities for different age range. These are well structured and give easy instructions to follow. I loved the questions section (“thinking back and lokkins ahead”) at the end of each activity.

[oohlalabooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was quite helpful, it offers activities and tips for parents and is easy to read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a gifted copy. This is my honest review.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book that teaches many social skills for children of all ages! There are various activities that are divided by age groups and are engaging and easy to integrate into the day.

[Gloria Byrd · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up. I’ll need to re-read when I have kids of my own.