Learning Social Skills at Preschools

Watching adults around them and replicating what they see, forms the first social skills that toddlers learn in their lives. This makes parenting business more than meeting your child’s needs. Parents are the first teachers who deck-up their kids with several social skills before they step into a classroom. Upon entering the educational set-up, kids further enhance their social skills with their teachers and classmates. Meanwhile, teachers can play an instrumental role in the personality building of kids, by engaging them with good activities such as reading. This habit helps kids to read stories and relate the situations laid out in books to real life. It helps the child to develop an analytical bent of mind. A child's exposure to the outside world starts the day he gets into a preschool. It is the time when the kids learn to separate from their parents at drop off time, forms new associations.

Preschools are the first formal educational set-up that your child steps in for learning. This place forms the foremost learning space that facilitates early childhood education to children before they kick-start their compulsory education at primary schools. Fun makes learning interesting, therefore preschool teachers are expected to teach social skills through playful methods. Engaging mediums such as stories, songs, puppets, and games can be used to teach kids about communication and interaction. Among the many skills that kids learn at preschool—social skills are the first learning that a kid learns at an early age. Adjusting at a news place, getting in contact with kids of the same age, listening to them, connecting with them are few of the things that can be enlisted under social skills. Few of the social skills that a kid learn are listed below -

Communication -

The child learns to effortlessly connect and communicate with others. This is the time when he starts making eye contact with the person speaking to him, he learns to greet-say please, thank you, and sorry. They learn different communication etiquettes.

Listening -

This skill takes a greater deal to adapt to personality. While we are born with listening ability, it takes a conscious effort to listen and understand what others are saying. This is especially important for extroverts who are habitual for speaking.

Expressing Right -

An expression is a medium through which you tell others how you are feeling. For kids, it is important for them to learn to put a name to what they are feeling. It drives them to voice out their opinion instead of turning to other methods.

Teamwork -

By engaging kids in a group activity. teachers can encourage their pupils to interact with one another. It helps children to function in a team as a participant, helping them to decide their role in a group activity.

Empathy -

Compassion is important for human beings. It helps them to maintain a healthy relationship with others. It is highly important for kids to learn that laughing on others while they are in pain is a bad act and that they need to treat others with much care.

Every child is unique, similarly, each one of them has a special way of learning social skills. A teacher can play a distinguishing role by understanding the learning capabilities of their pupils and working individually on them. A varied approach may be required to reach some of them. But what they all need from a teacher is a reassurance that the classroom is a safe space where they are loved and valued.

In the words of Rajesh Bhatia, founder ofTreehouse, “Classroom learning is important, it hugely shapes an individual’s personality and drives them in the right direction as they age. For kids, social skills get them ready to be a healthy and functional part of society.”