| Help! We know that friends are important. If you missed the reasoning on that, check the previous post. helping kids make friends is a vital part of their development. So what if our child has trouble making friends? Some people just have magnetic personalities and will always have people gravitate towards them. But that’s not most people. Most kids — and adults — have to work at making friends.  What to teach: Let’s go through 5 things to teach our littles that will help them make friends. Sharing Social Cues Self-regulation Compliments Empathy Sharing Encourage littles to share experiences and objects. Show them how to instigate sharing. If they’re playing with a ball, prompt them to invite someone to play with them. If they’re stacking blocks, ask if they’d like to ask someone to play with them. Encourage taking turns. Sharing should be proactive, not just responsive. Social Cues Social cues or body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions are signs of how people feel.Play games to help them recognize these cues. Help them notice when someone looks happy or sad or lonely or frustrated so they can understand people’s feelings.This is especially crucial for children on the autism spectrum. A great source of information on this is Kim Botto. Self Regulating Teach your child how to calm down and re-center themselves. Learning the 4 Rs of Regulation — recognize, respect, regulate, re-story — can help littles be aware of their body and its response to emotions.If you’re new to teaching kiddos about their feelings, here’s fun and helpful coloring pages. Compliments Everyone loves a compliment!I’m not talking about false flattery, I mean recognizing something positive about other people and mentioning it. Encourage compliments to be about behavior rather than personal appearance. I like hearing, “Cute shoes” but I love hearing, “You really handled that situation well.” Empathy John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Friendship is seeing a need and responding to it. Jesus is the ultimate friend! Teach littles to look at people with Jesus’ eyes. Jesus loves EVERYONE and that makes EVERYONE valuable. Making friends Learning these skills will help your kiddos make friends! Now they’re ready to put what they’ve learning into action. The next step: Playdate! Did you know that most of these skills are addressed in KidMin Choirs? Joining a choir is a great way to help your kids make friends! |
