Extract of Social Awareness Skills for Children

Contents

ABOUT THE BOOK
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE: CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS; PROFESSIONAL AND PARENTAL HELP
CHAPTER TWO: IMPROVING A CHILD'S SELF-ESTEEM
CHAPTER THREE: FRIENDS
CHAPTER FOUR: ROLES & RULES
CHAPTER FIVE: SOCIAL RULES AND EXPECTED SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
CHAPTER SIX: INTRODUCING BODY LANGUAGE
CHAPTER SEVEN: USING BODY LANGUAGE
CHAPTER EIGHT: ASSERTIVENESS
CHAPTER NINE: HANDLING FEELINGS
CHAPTER TEN: ANGER
CHAPTER ELEVEN: SOCIAL SITUATIONS
CHAPTER TWELVE: SOCIAL SAFETY
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: COMMUNICATION SKILLS FOR IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF THE CHILD'S
RELATIONSHIPS
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE ART OF GIFTS & COMPLIMENTS
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: HELPING AND CARING SKILLS
SUMMARY
PARENTAL PAGE: SUGGESTIONS TO REINFORCE THE COURSE
INDEX

About the Book
This book is intended for professionals, parents and carers engaged in teaching children communication and social skills, for whatever reason. For example, children with Special Needs (such as Asperger's syndrome, Attention Deficit Disorder and Learning Difficulties) require considerable help in learning how to relate to other people and how to behave positively or appropriately. Other children may not have had socially skilled role models to learn from or they may have failed to pick up on the finer aspects of communication despite having very socially skilled parents or carers.

The book is suitable for children aged about seven to sixteen and comprises a course made up of several small tasks, to be worked through with the child, and advice for the professional, parent or carer. Although the tasks in the book have been designed to be worked through on a one-to-one basis, it would be possible to use them with a small group. One advantage of small group work in therapy is that some children, who are totally unaware of the social mistakes they make themselves, may be able to observe and learn from others' mistakes.

Each task is sufficiently short to allow for frequent breaks within the whole session, so that the child's concentration is only needed in short bursts. Aim to work up to an hour in each session, but with older children, particularly teenagers, the speed at which the tasks are completed could be greater than that for the younger child as long as understanding is not compromised. (Parents or carers could work in ten-minute stretches if their child cannot concentrate for longer since they have the advantage of being 'on hand'.) It is possible to stop at any point throughout the course and continue another time, although it is important to recap at the end of one session and the beginning of the next. Constant revision of ideas is recommended as children need frequent reinforcement.

The book is practically based with examples to illustrate the ideas discussed to make communication and social skills training familiar territory. This will make it easier to apply it to the child's life. Example answers have been included for the person leading the session to give the child suggestions or help should she need further explanation of a task. They are not intended to be model answers. Others may be equally or more valid, depending on the special circumstances of a situation.

Introduction
If you think a child's answer to any of the following questions would be, "Yes", then this book is suitable for her. Are you shy? Are you often ignored? Do you feel you are not liked or admired by other people? Do you hate having to talk to people you hardly know? Is it hard for you to ask your teacher a question or ask her for help? Do you dread being singled out from your friends? Do you find it hard to make friends (and keep them)? Do you have trouble sticking up for yourself? Do other children take advantage of you? Do people say hurtful things to you (and get away with it)? Do you often feel bad about yourself? Do you lack confidence? Do you prefer to look at the floor than make eye contact? Do you stoop or slouch, especially when you feel awkward about something? Do you bully other children? Do you lash out when you are angry? Do you throw tantrums? Are you bullied? Has any adult made you do something you feel uncomfortable about? Do you sometimes not know how to behave in certain situations? Do you lack tact? Do you interrupt other people's conversations at inappropriate moments? Are you unaware of when you bore people? Do you only have one-sided conversations with you always talking or you always listening to someone else? Do you feel isolated or rejected?

This book comprises a course in social awareness skills that includes communication and social skills, the skills needed to help children overcome the above problems. Communication skills is about being able to communicate, without misunderstandings on either side and social skills is about being sensitive to others and respecting them in the way that one relates to them. Communication and social skills are essential aspects of becoming socially aware and socially skilled.

Communication Skills
To be a good communicator, a child needs to be able to give the right messages, so that she is clearly understood. This involves speaking distinctly, understanding body language, showing her feelings in an appropriate way and being able to explain herself. She also needs to be skilled at reading other people's messages and interpreting them. (Do they actually mean that, or, because they laughed, am I being teased?)

Part of being socially skilled is having good communication skills. A child cannot be socially skilled if people misunderstand her and take offence. She cannot make friends if she is unable to chat to them or relate to them on their level and she cannot successfully relate to the adults in her life if she is too shy or awkward to talk to them or ask them for help. Communication skills also help protect her in awkward situations.

Social Skills
Social skills are not only to do with a child being polite to others but to also explain her needs in such a way that others can take her seriously and respect her opinions. They are to do with respecting others - that means dealing with them without bullying them or saying things to deliberately hurt, respecting other religions, cultures and other races. And they are to do with respecting herself - showing others that she is worth a lot to herself. It is also important for a child to show sensitivity to others and understanding of others' points of view and to be able to negotiate a middle road in times of conflict.

Why Do We Need to Teach Communication and Social Skills?
The acquisition of communication and social skills is usually left entirely to chance, apart from a few obvious instructions to a child (for example, telling her to say, "Please", "Thank you" and "Thank you for having me"). Some children are lucky: they have socially skilled parents or carers who are good communicators and have had the privilege to observe them in social situations, so learning to copy, adapt and develop what they see. Others are not so lucky and suggested reasons for this are given below. Their parents or carers may have lacked skilful communication and social skills and they pass that lack on to their own children. Their parents or carers may be socially skilled but the children fail to observe this behaviour and so it is not accessible to them. Their parents or carers may feel awkward when meeting others and so their children may not have had the opportunity to observe positive social behaviour. The children may have particular problems that have meant they have not developed appropriate social skills.
Instead of leaving it to chance whether a child picks up on these essential life-skills, it is better to teach them.

Why Does a Child Need to Learn Communication and Social Skills?
Children who do not develop good communication and social skills may have a string of failing or failed relationships, without ever knowing why. This could leave them hurt and confused, making them feel bad about themselves. This lowers their self-esteem and dents their confidence making it even more likely that they are unsuccessful in their relationships in the future.

To be able to exercise good social skills and not be afraid of communicating their thoughts and feelings, children need to have confidence and a high self-esteem. Chapters Two and Three are concerned with strengthening these shortcomings.

Communication and social skills training is not merely about how to behave when meeting people from outside the family - it is training for a clearer and more honest form of communication that pervades every aspect of life, from within the home to all situations outside of the home. It also shows one how to listen and support others, how to read people's body language and pick up on the many cues people give to convey certain messages: many problems arise when these are not recognised or are misinterpreted.

In addition to communication and social skills, social awareness skills include knowledge and understanding of social expectations in certain places and within certain situations, and social safety. Social awareness skills allow the child to grow and understand human nature more thoroughly.

The Aim of the Book
The aim of the book is to show you how to help a child:boost her self-esteem respect herself respect other people respect differences between people make friends and keep them understand the different roles people have in different situations understand the social rules that need to be followed in certain places and in certain situations be a good communicator show her feelings control her anger behave assertively have the confidence to stand up for herself not be embarrassed or ashamed to ask for help when she needs it reduce negative behaviour towards others and herself negotiate predict the consequences of her actions receive compliments gracefully and give meaningful compliments to others be non-judgemental be a good listener empathise with other people.

Whatever the reason for underdeveloped communication and social skills, this book will help the child understand how to behave positively towards others without compromising culture, beliefs, traditions and values.

Author's Note
To avoid the continual use of he/she in this book, 'she' has been used to encompass both sexes.
To avoid the continual use of parent/carer etc in this book, the word parent has been used to mean any adult who is in the position of being the main carer for the child. This person may be her natural birth parent, her adoptive or foster parent, an adult who looks after children in care or another relative such as a grandparent. When the word parents is used, this may mean either a couple or one person who has sole responsibility for the child.
When a child is referred to as 'playing with' another, swap this expression for 'socialising with' for a teenager.
The course begins in Chapter Two.
You will need an A4 ring binder file and plenty of A4 paper on which to write the child's responses to the exercises. (If she is older, she may be able to write the responses herself although she may have difficulty summarising the ideas.) If all the pages are kept together in a file, she can easily remind herself of all the things that were talked about between you at any time in the future. It will give her something special to keep. The ideas addressed are valid for people of any age - she may wish to use them well into adulthood.
Some pages are photocopiable for professionals to use with parents and are marked with a tick.
For older and more able children, some chapters may be completed in one session an hour long. However, the speed at which you complete the chapter may vary depending on the ability of the child with whom you are working and on how significant the chapter is for that child. The timing is unimportant. For example, a child who is a beginner at understanding about body language may need to spend much more time on Chapters Six and Seven. You can stop and later start again at any point in the book (in order). However, it is important that, when you reach the end of a chapter, you summarise, with the child's help, what she has learnt from that section and what things need to be remembered and why.
Some tasks may be omitted altogether if they are inappropriate for the child's age or ability. Some concepts are harder to understand (such as Roles in Chapter Four), but have been included to challenge older children and to make the course complete. The child can return to the course at a later stage in her life and benefit from a more in-depth approach allowing the course to grow with the child.
A child needs to experience unconditional regard: that despite whatever failings she or you feel she has, you respect her. (In the case of parents helping their child, add unconditional love to unconditional regard.) This is vital to having a confident child with a high self-esteem.

Chapter One: Children with Special Needs; Professional and Parental Help
Children who have poor social skills are often lonely, have few friends and suffer social rejection and isolation. Later in life, they may have difficulty finding and keeping employment. Children who are socially isolated and rejected are at greater risk of emotional disorders (such as depression and panic attacks) and behavioural disorders (such as anti-social behaviour and delinquency).

Children with Special Needs
Children with Special Needs are at still higher risk of emotional and behavioural disorders than those who have poor social skills alone. Often, the impaired cognitive development (knowing about and perceiving the world around them) and impaired emotional and social development from which they suffer can lead to social and academic failure, increasing the likelihood of their becoming anti-social and delinquent.

Other factors increase the likelihood of anti-social behaviour. For example, some children with Attention Deficit (Hyperactive) Disorder, may be predisposed towards aggression and, unfortunately, may be less responsive to punishments or lack understanding of the consequences of what they have done. This, in turn, can lead to dislike of school and of those in authority, and a rejection of the values held by them.

It is important to help all children with poor social skills, and most particularly those with Special Needs, at as early an age as possible to prevent the downward spiral of social rejection and failure leading to anti-social behaviour and emotional problems later in life.

Some children may never achieve very socially skilled behaviour but with help, they may achieve a level of social competence that will aid them perform positively in society. With help they may fulfil their basic needs of friendship, be socially included and employable and will have learnt what behaviour is unacceptable and understand the reasons why.

Pervasive Development Disorder
Autism and Asperger Syndrome (plus other related disorders) come under the broad heading of Pervasive Development Disorder (a neurological disorder that affects brain function). It is characterised by impairment in several areas of development (one on its own is insufficient for such a diagnosis to be made), all children showing deficits in communication and social skills, but differing in severity. Both autistic and Asperger children may have differing severity of symptoms at different stages of their lives and their typical behaviours may change or improve over time.

Autism
Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning that there is the full range of abilities and severity of problems: sufferers can have any combination of a number of symptoms to any degree. Sufferers of autism may have other disorders that also affect brain function such as epilepsy, mental retardation or genetic disorders. Autism is apparent before the age of thirty months.

Autistic children become increasingly unresponsive to parents' affection and resist being cuddled. They remain aloof from people and fail to form relationships, preferring to play alone, finding it hard or impossible to play cooperatively with other children. They are often indifferent to social conventions and lack the ability to understand other people's feelings.

Autistic children have great difficulties with learning language and find it hard to communicate with others (both verbally and non-verbally) and lack the ability to understand or copy gestures. Speech, when acquired, is robot-like and monotonal, without the variation of higher and lower pitch. The children can be extremely hyperactive or passive and behave impulsively. They may have temper tantrums or cry for no apparent reason. Their symptoms and abilities can vary from day to day.

Some children may show aggression, be self-injurious and often have repeated body movements such as rocking or hand flapping and dislike changes in routine, to the extent that they resist learning new skills as they like things to remain the same. Some children may also have sensitivity in the five senses of touch, sight, hearing, taste and smell.

Children with autism show uneven skill development (unlike those who are mentally retarded, where the development of all skills is at a similar level): they may have highly developed skills in areas, for example, other than language such as in music and drawing or in memorising facts. Autism is about three to four times more common in boys than girls.

Asperger Syndrome
Asperger Syndrome is part of the autism spectrum but it is characterised by greater language abilities. Asperger children have language skills at or slightly below the average, whereas children diagnosed with autism usually have extreme difficulty in learning language and most never develop normal speech. Asperger children also often have average or above average intelligence. Usually, delays in social, communicative and cognitive development are noted within the first twelve months.

Children with Asperger syndrome often interrupt conversations at inappropriate moments about some wholly unrelated topic to that currently under discussion. They like to dominate conversations, usually talking about something with which they are obsessed and do not worry about whether the other person is interested in what they have to say. Such conversations are not 'social' as they are one-sided, focusing on one person's interests alone with total disregard for the other's needs and without trying to make the experience rewarding.

Also, children with Asperger syndrome are usually unable to read facial expressions or pick up on body language or social cues. They need to be taught to look for these and how to interpret what they see. They may also have difficulty keeping eye contact with someone they are talking to, which is an essential part of communicating person to person.

Like autistic children, they like routine and may fix on a particular item or idea. Far more boys than girls are diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome.

Attention Deficit (Hyperactive) Disorder
Attention Deficit Disorder is a syndrome which is usually characterised by poor attention span, impulsivity and hyperactivity (but not in all cases). They can suffer from other conditions such as Learning Difficulties, have delayed speech development and have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders.

Children with Attention Deficit (Hyperactive) Disorder are easily distracted and are inattentive (they may make careless mistakes or may not pay close attention to detail or may be forgetful of what needs to be done). They often have difficulty following instructions, frequently not listening to what is being said. They may have difficulty organising tasks, disliking tasks that require sustained effort and may lose the things they need to complete them.

Those that are hyperactive have difficulty in remaining seated or in performing an activity quietly, talking excessively. They often fidget with their hands or feet or in their seat.

They also have a tendency to be impulsive: not considering the consequences of their actions, being tactless or being unable to wait their turn at games or in speech, often blurting out an answer to a question given to another child and frequently interrupting, appearing bossy, insensitive, and rude.

Many children with Attention Deficit (Hyperactive) Disorder have difficulty following social rules and understanding what is expected in different social situations and so must be taught what to do when.

In addition to behavioural problems, some children with Attention Deficit (Hyperactive) Disorder suffer from anxiety disorders and many more from depression. About three times as many boys than girls are diagnosed with this condition and, for some, the condition improves with age.

Learning Difficulties
Generally, children with Learning Difficulties have a measure of overlap with some of the above problems. Many children with Learning Difficulties (and/or the above problems) are unable to change their behaviour in response to changing demands, and so their behaviour may often seem inappropriate for a particular situation. They may be unable to control their emotions, resulting in outbursts, temper tantrums, overreaction, impatience, and limited self-awareness. The lack of emotional control increases the risk of behavioural problems, anxiety, and depression.

Children who behave awkwardly and inappropriately in social situations and are socially imperceptive (not picking up on body language cues or messages given by other people by fine adjustment of behaviour) may feel isolated and uninvolved with their peers and even rejected. They may be ignored or subjected to ridicule, harassment or bullying. This can put children off going to school as the way they feel about school may depend on their social success - or lack of it.

School Phobia
School phobia is not a true phobia but because such intense fear centres around the school environment, causing extreme physical symptoms, it is so conveniently called. Some professionals prefer to call it school refusal.

School phobia can be considered to be of two types. Children with school phobia up to age 8 usually suffer from separation anxiety. (This is frequently accompanied by agoraphobia, where the child is unable to travel on public transport, fearing being ill and developing panic attacks.) The child's reluctance to go to school centres around her lack of confidence and independence because of feelings of insecurity triggered by many possible causes. Examples include feeling threatened by having a new sibling in the family, a parent becoming very ill and having a long break from school themselves through illness or because of a summer holiday. Sometimes the trigger is due to marital problems and a break up of marriage. Most school phobia starts in the first term of the year around September and October.

Children over age 8, more frequently suffer a form of school phobia that is really social phobia or performance anxiety. Things like answering in class, having to read aloud in front of others, being picked last for games and being physically uncoordinated can cause immense stress for children. Teasing and criticism from peers and/or teachers can make a child dread evaluation from anyone in the school environment.

Even if your child has overcome a bout of school phobia, he or she is more prone to suffering it again in the future. For example, a seven-year-old may have recovered from a severe case of school phobia. But she is at greater risk than others of having school phobia when she starts secondary school, when there are new pressures to contend with.

A school phobic child has Special Needs. For a time in her life, the child is made unwell by going to school. Some children suffer so badly that they are either removed from school by their parents to be educated at home or they have to be taught in a Special Unit where the environment is cosier and less threatening than the school environment. Or they may spend years of misery with unresolved anxieties causing other psychological disorders later in life such as depression and panic disorder (where the sufferer has unexpected panic attacks with no apparent trigger). Teenagers who are suffering from constant anxieties may turn to drug, alcohol or solvent abuse to try to numb the feelings they have for some respite.

Teaching social awareness skills to a child can aid her recovery from school phobia and, particularly for the social phobic children, it can help prevent a recurrence later in life. These skills help the child become more confident and more able to manage relationships so that they are positive and non-destructive. They can also help protect a child from bullying, which is another reason why children can refuse to go to school.

Friendships form an important part in a child's life. It is vital that they have every chance of making a success of these relationships. We practice on our friends and use the knowledge of our successes and mistakes to develop more meaningful relationships as we get older. In our adult life, we need to have satisfying and rewarding friendships to give us support, to guard against depression, to aid getting a job and keeping it, and to successfully relate to many different people in all areas of life. For those children who have a lower starting point than the majority, it is essential that they be taught these skills, so often taken for granted by others, to even the balance, ensuring their happiness and social success.