Articles by Eileen Kennedy-Moore, PhD About Social Skills
12 Ways to Help When Your Child Struggles to Make Friends
When your child comes home heartbroken over friendship troubles, it’s natural to feel helpless. But there’s more you can do than you think! Learn how to support your child’s emotional awareness, coach them through social challenges, and find their people with these 12 actionable tips.
5 Ways to Teach Your Child to Be Grateful
Expressing gratitude is a skill all children need to learn.
4 Common Complaints About Teamwork
Four complaints that children and adults commonly voice during group projects, and some possible ways parents or teachers can respond.
5 Friendship Skills Your Child May Have Forgotten
After a year of living remotely, children may have forgotten a lot about getting along with peers. Here’s an overview of five essential friendship skills.
Is Your Child a Good Friend?
It takes effort and practice for children to learn how to be a good friend.
When Your Child Hates Compliments
Reasons why receiving a compliment feels so uncomfortable for some kids and possible solutions.
3 Common Friendship Mistakes for Kids
Every child faces friendship challenges at some time, in some way, but broadly speaking, there are three main ways that children struggle socially.
How To Be Your Child’s Friendship Coach
Recent research suggests that parents can play an important role in helping children learn social skills. Here are some ways to be an effective friendship coach for your child.
Conversation Skills For Kids
Understanding and practicing some simple formulas can help your child manage common conversations and feel comfortable talking with others.
Do Boys Need Rough and Tumble Play?
Why do boys wrestle and play pretend fighting? Do all boys do this? Should we view it as violence or innocent fun?
Soft Criticism
If we want others to respond constructively to our criticism, we need to be able to give it in a way that decreases their defensiveness. (Hint: It’s not just about adding praise!)
Learning to Be a Good Sport
Many children have trouble coping with winning and losing. They gloat, brag, cry, sulk, or accuse others of cheating. Here are some ways to help kids take competition in stride.
Children’s Play Date Guidelines
What Friends Teach Children
Friends are not only a source of fun; they also help children grow in meaningful ways.
Children’s Growing Friendships
What is your child’s current level of friendship understanding? Here are ages and stages of children’s friendships.
What Are Social Skills?
Q: I hear a lot about how important it is for children to develop social skills. What exactly are social skills, and how do children learn them? There are a lot of different definitions of social skills, but I think of them as the abilities necessary to get along with others and to create and…