Ugh! The dreaded social skills topic! It’s so hard but so needed!
I think it’s so hard because there is so much failure around it.
I don’t know a parent that doesn’t have social skills on their mind. The deficits they see and the trauma and triggers around it. It comes up with every single intro parent call.
Here’s the thing though - starting with social skills before you have basic boundaries and handling correction down, is like taking a high school math class before learning division and multiplication.
It’s like gambling every time and living on hope. Hoping it will be successful and devastated when another neighborhood family won’t let their child play with your child.
Because they don’t understand boundaries or are highly emotional, they often do things that make other kids feel uncomfortable. Then when you go in and try to process, or teach, they receive it as correction and they blow up.
Work first on basic boundaries. Teaching cause and affect and impact for choices in a safe place like your home. Where everyone will and does love them no matter what they do. Teach it and teach it and teach it, until you feel things start to calm. When you can teach or reason or give correction without a blow up. Let them learn from you in a safe way, at home, so they don’t destroy possible friend connections prematurely.
Respecting personal boundaries. Handling correction or coaching.
THEN open up the world to them a little at a time.
Instead of having them go to a friends house at first - have the friend come to your house. Be present and available for quiet off to the side coaching if needed. Because of all the work you have done, they will be more responsive. Keep it short! Under 30 min at first to see how it goes.
If it’s successful, increase the time, let them play a little further away from you, or increase frequency!
If you are journaling, jot down your feelings around social. How has it gone in the past? What are the road blocks to your child being successful? Do they handle correction or coaching from you? How are they doing with boundaries?
Then set some small manageable goals to see progress!
