As children get older, they become part of a larger social world. How they come across to others and make first impression is important, not only for showing good manners, but also for social success. Children don’t need to be the most popular ones in their class, but they do need good social skills. Their ability to successfully interact socially will impact their success in school, their career path, and their lifelong relationships. The following five skills can help your child make a good first impression:

1. A Sincere Smile

A smile says you’re happy to meet someone, and everyone loves to feel like people are happy to meet them. Practice introducing yourself to your child with and without smiling to show the point. Explain them that genuine smile and gentle handshake when meeting someone for the first time are always desirable.

2. Good Body Language

Body language, as a form of nonverbal communication, can reveal whether someone is happy or sad, excited or angry.The ability to understand and use body language is a powerful tool that can help children connect with others, express what they really mean, and build better relationships. The way you can practice this skill with your children: let them watch a film or documentary on TV. Mute the sound and ask them what they think each person is feeling according to their specific body and facial expressions.

3. Eye Contact

It’s important to teach children from a young age to look people in the eye when they’re talking to them, or they could develop a habit of seeming aloof or disinterested in communicating with other people. Good eye contact conveys respect and understanding, and lets people know we are interested in what they have to say. Therefore, ask your child to hold eye contact with you for at least 15 seconds and count as you look at each other. This exercise boosts confidence in making eye contact for future introductions. Explain them that if someone doesn’t make eye contact while talking, it reveals to the other person that something or someone else is more important than the person standing right in front of him/her.

4. Listening

Many of us think that communication is talking, but good communication requires good listening skills as well. In fact, since we have two ears and only one mouth, listening just might be the more important skill. However, nowadays it seems that listening is a forgotten social skill. We hear mostly what we want to hear, not what the other person is trying to communicate to us. It’s easy to recognize that someone is actively listening: eye contact, open body language, an engaged facial expression, nodding one’s head or asking questions. To practice this skill with your children, tell them a story, something new and different with a few fun details that children might remember. To make sure they were actively listening, ask them questions related to your story or if they can retell it.

5. Respect

Teaching children good manners is teaching them, among other things, to treat others with respect. Explain them that no adult should be called by his or her first name unless they let them do so. Furthermore, discuss with your children the way they greet and address their neighbors, friends, parents, teachers, shop assistants, post office clerks. This will help them later in life for communication with superiors and colleagues in the workplace.

How do you teach your children social skills? Share with us your ideas.

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We sometimes see traditional charitable efforts to deliver social services as a one way flow – one dollar to feed my neighbor is one less dollar to feed my own. However, new, innovative and bold minds, coupled with greater awareness of global struggles, have paved the bridge where underprivileged communities can access temporary monetary relief and the means to extend the reach of such largesse. Social enterprises are at the vanguard of marrying the financial and management expertise of global bodies with local talent to spur sustainable social and environmental projects.

If there is a single person who embodies the entrepreneurial spirit of today’s bold stride towards making a difference in local communities, Sir Richard Branson, founder of the social impact body Virgin United, has shown all of us how ingenuity and a passion for helping others alone can create a lasting impression on the world. Having sculpted his first magazine business at the age of 16 and successfully launched and signed the signature artists Rolling Stones and Sex Pistols through his flagship company Virgin Records, Sir Branson has incorporated an innate sense of entrepreneurship in his day to day life.

The true artistry of his knack for creativity came into play when Sir Branson entered the humanitarian world by supporting public health efforts to alleviate some of the most formidable infections like HIV/AID, malaria, and tuberculosis in deprived regions at the grass root level. By establishing the nonprofit Virgin Unite brand under his venture capital firm Virgin Group, individuals in poverty-stricken countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, have not only received access to tools to mitigate the spread of life-threatening infections, but also the dual benefit of being able to use these resources to create sustainable businesses that can improve local livelihoods.

Heaven’s Angels Campaign

One deeply rhapsodizing movement by Virgin Unite is captured in its Heaven’s Angels Campaign, which challenges the lack of proper inland infrastructure in South Africa and Kenya that is obstructing healthcare products and services from reaching thousands of people who could otherwise avoid victimization by communicable diseases. The team equips previously unemployed locals with motorcycles to deliver batches of medicines, equipment, and medical services to rural and isolated districts. However, the story does not end here. With each motorcycle averaging $5,000 in costs, the entrepreneurial spirit of the employees has inspired them to employee this capital to upstart their proprietary taxi and transportation enterprises. As a result, the campaign acts as its own funding source while delivering humanitarian relief. Individuals flirting with the thought of creating their own or participating in established social welfare projects can look to Sir Richard Branson as an epitome of how society can sidestep the pitfall of charity models in which we transfer resources for temporary relief that do not carry the added benefit of self-sustaining those efforts in the long run. People in all tranches of society, whether working on public policy initiatives or incubating private campaigns, can assimilate some aspect of United Virgin’s approach to give more families the amenities that we sometimes take for granted.

Along with promulgating public health campaigns across underprivileged rural communities, Virgin Unite champions its social enterprise approach to challenging environmental distresses impacting us on a personal level. Four years ago, the team introduced the Carbon War Room venture to tackle the hemorrhaging emission of Co2 in a progressively urban period. The CWR spawned an innovative online platform that gauges the level of gas emission efficiency of individual vessels across the global shipping industry, responsible for 1 billion tons of annual discharge of Co2. Budding and established corporations are employing this framework to make conscious decisions in regards to the makeup of their maritime fleet. While most of us may not consider this initiative in a traditional philanthropic light, it quintessentially underpins how pressing social concerns can be mitigated while igniting ways for these efforts to fuel themselves or provide ancillary benefits that can help sustain social impact projects.

While we all may have our differences in opinions about how we can best serve society at large, Sir Richard Branson reminds us that the most critical ingredient to a meaningful cause is that initial momentum and sense of initiative. If we do not take the stand to involve ourselves with the opportunities to make a material impact flying right by us, then there is no chance that marginalized groups of people can receive any alleviation. We might feel it impossible to make a dent in the larger scheme of the world, but if we overcome that apprehension, then we can see how entrepreneurial spirit at the grass root level can drive some of the most profound movements taking place right now.

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It is very important to encourage skill development which will help them learn to be gracious winners or outstanding losers, and how to behave in stressful situations. Children grow in constant interaction with their environment. Such environment naturally reflects on their social and emotional development. In addition, developmental psychologists point out that every child should have loving and affectionate environment in order to become socially and emotionally healthy person.

Social and emotional development of children may vary depending on their temperament, cultural influences, some form of disability, actions of their parents, or other adults that are role-models, the feeling of being safe or not while interacting with grown-ups, opportunities for social interaction,…

Emotional development usually occurs in early childhood. First emotions that can be identified are joy, anger, sadness, fear and disgust. From the moment they are born, children establish relationship with the environment. They begin to recognize and manage their feelings. At the age of one and a half, they become aware of their emotional behaviour. Between two and three, according to the previously learned behavioral norms, they develop complex emotions such as pride, guilt, confusion and shame. Their ability to respond to the situations from the environment increases during the preschool years.

How to encourage social and emotional development of your child?

1. The positive feeling of affection in the first year of your child’s life makes the socialization possible. Therefore, it is extremely important for emotional development of every child to provide them with love and affection. Acknowledge your child’s feelings. Help them talk about what they feel and how they feel in certain situations.

2. Promote expression of feelings and help your child learn how to appropriately manage his emotions. For instance, if he is demonstrating anger by throwing away toys, tell him that everybody can be angry sometimes. However, point out that this model of behaviour is not good. Teach them to control their emotions and to calm down. Let them take a deep breath, and help them to turn away from the cause of their anger. Moreover, if you want to prevent children from certain things or actions, try to explain them why you want that.

3. Be a role model. When you have strong, respectful relationships and interaction with others, your child learns from your positive example. You should not neglect your own emotional and social needs. By nurturing them you will be also able to meet all the needs of your child, in a better way.

4. Every day spend some time with your child. Even if it’s only half an hour. Read to him, talk to him, give him advise or show him that you are proud when he/she has done something right… In this way you will help them develop selfawareness and the sense of the world around them. Encourage your child’s curiosity. Support his creativity and independence.

5. Make sure your child has regular social contact with other children and adults. This will help him explore his world and get to know the people in it. By stepping into various social relationships children learn that they are separate individuals. They will be able to put themselves in another person’s shoes and imagine what that person is feeling.

Apart from the family, peers and teachers have great influence on child’s social and emotional development at preschool age. Through various activities and games, teachers try to encourage and motivate children to learn how to express their feelings, understand emotions of other people, establish a relationship with people from their environment and become aware of their experiences and differences. One of the main tasks of theachers is to help children develop their social behaviour. Play has a very important role. It gives the child freedom to choose and the ability to make a decision. However, it also requires them to follow certain rules of the game. When playing, they learn about their environment and about the ways they can cope with it. There are many activities that teachers use in kindergartens. Each activity has a different purpose, either to help children understand various types of social behaviour, or teach them to be tolerant towards peers and appreciate differences, develop communication skills, learn to cooperate with others…

Here are some of them:

1. Dots game

Each player receives a sheet of paper. He needs to draw 20 dots as he likes. Then he gives the paper to the player on his left who has the task to link all the dots in order to get some image. After that, the paper is passed to the player on the left who has to colour the resulting image, and so on. When the game is finished one large picture can be made from all the drawings and displayed on the board.

This game belongs to the group of activities with the aim to develop collaboration and cooperation. It’s suitable for kids 3 to 7 years old.

2. The game of introduction encourages honesty and originality. One variation of this game is false introduction when two children present themselves to each other, as if they met for the first time. When introduction is over, each child has to say two things about himself – one is true, and the other is false. His partner has to guess what is right and what is wrong.

3. Role play allows the child to experience what it’s like to be somebody else. He/she has the opportunity to understand experiences and emotions of others. How it’s played? Well, teacher can tell kids to imagine a travel through a fairy tale. On his mark children change their appearance, facial expression, behaviour or some other detail, depending on the country or place they have previously imagined: The Land of Cockaigne (an imaginary land of great luxury and ease), the land of artists, elders, miners, silence, darkness,…

4. Trough expression games children are encouraged to express their feelings, experiences, needs, abilities, etc. out being limited. One of expression games is called the “poem”. Children and their teacher choose a well-known, not very long poem, and every child is given the task – to recite the poem as if he was angry, confused, conceited, in love…

5. Another interesting game is a little wizard game. Children imagine they are wizards and can do whatever they want. They get tasks to resolve various conflicts – between dog and cat, Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf, elephant and mouse, brother and sister, etc. Children can resolve conflict situations by drawing, acting, or they can invent a sign or a word to make a spell. This game should help children realize that putting themselves in someone else’s place and analyzing the problem seen through the eyes of other people, is the first condition to resolve the conflict.

In one of my previous blogs I wrote about how important it was for my brother and other children with special needs to attend kindergarten, and about the positive influence it had on his behaviour. Do you agree that it’s important for children to stay in kindergarten and spend time with peers and teachers regarding their social and emotional development? What are your methods to encourage such development? Share with us your experiences and ideas.

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