How do you "teach" social behavior?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2006
How do you "teach" social behavior?
1
Fri, 03-31-2006 - 9:46am

I am new here and just starting the process of professional evaluation. With dx or not I know we need to work on teaching social behavior (at 4.5 you do not RUN into a group of kids playing and say "hi friends" and fall down on the floor in front of them etc...

I read the post from July on making friends and found that so interesting. Many of you mentioned "play thearapy" and I was wondering what specifically they were teachig the children to do.
Thanks for sharing!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 03-31-2006 - 12:46pm

In play therapy or a social group they would teach things like how to enter into a play situation. How to have conversations with peers. How to play games with out having to be the boss or having to win.

Mike has been working on conversations with peers. She taught him how to ask questions and comment on a conversation a peer was having. How to appear interested in what the other kid was saying. Even how many turns to take in a conversation. At first it was very scripted and robotic what he would say. She started with just conversations with her. Eventually he got much better. He now takes my friends son with him now and the therapist works with them together having conversations and playing games.

Another big problem for Mike was being able to be a good sport at games. It was to the point that he couldn't go to PE at all and they couldn't play competitive games in class because of the kinds of meltdowns he would have. After a year of therapy he was able to play basketball on a team this year (of younger kids) and was fairly successful. He also can play games in school and go to PE but because the school was working on it too. He is starting to have some trouble again in this area but not nearly as bad as before.

There are many other things they can help with too.

Mike still has a LONG way to go. So does Cait. Social skills are never going to come naturally but they are learning concrete ways to cope and interact and the skills they learn slowly become more natural and easy.

Renee

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