How to Develop Your Kids Socially and Emotionally at Home?
Getting good grades in school is not enough. For your child’s overall development, it is important to look after their emotional and social well-being as well. This has been increasingly challenging because of the pandemic.
When adults are finding it difficult to cope with the lockdown, imagine the plight of children who would choose outdoors over indoors on any given day.
For the social and emotional development of children at home, it is important that parents come up with different activities, especially if your child is a preschooler.
It is the age when they are the most curious and gullible as well. They mirror their surroundings and the people they interact with.
Thus, you need to be cautious about how you portray yourself. For the social and emotional skill development of preschoolers, you have to reinvent your strategies continuously.
Read this blog to know how you can develop your kids socially and emotionally at home.
What Are Emotional Skills for Preschoolers?
Social and emotional learning starts when a child is born. The colors and the sound around them stimulate their mind. As a preschooler, your child must be able to display the following emotional skills:
- Affection towards family and friends
- Gentleness towards animals
- Able to copy the self-care habits of adults
- Moodiness when there is a change in routine
- Possessiveness towards personal things
- Display of a variety of emotions
- Stubbornness when they don’t get their way
What Activities Can Help Children’s Emotional Development?
Teaching children the importance of expressing their feelings and emotions should be taken care of from the very beginning. For the development of emotional skills for preschoolers, you can indulge them in the following activities:
Puppet Shows
You can create a small skit and enact it with the help of puppets. Your story can include a problem and its solution.
You can introduce different words and emotions to preschoolers with the help of these colorful and stimulating puppets. Use words like happy, sad, and angry in your skirt and make your puppets talk about these feelings.
Thinking Out Loud
Sometimes, it is difficult to understand exactly what your child might be feeling. In order to make it easier, teach them to think out loud.
Not only does it help children to understand their feelings more clearly, but it also keeps you in the loop as well. It also makes them better at expressing their feelings.
Special Stories
Preschoolers listen to their favorite characters and teachers more than they listen to their parents. You can make a routine habit of telling them a bedtime story that has emotional and moral lessons.
Their emotional intellect will grow with the characters in the story. Whenever there is an emotional dilemma, stop and ask your children for their input before reading any further.
What Activities Can Help a Child’s Social Development?
Social skill development for children is a continuous practice. All the wrongs and rights that you teach them at this age will be accepted by them throughout their lives.
Some of the activities for children’s social development are:
Household Chores
Daily routines are considered good social skills activities for children. Since all of you will be home most of the time, invite your child to finish a task with you.
Don’t critique them on every mistake but do teach them how to do a task properly. It teaches them the importance of helping others and with time, it will help them in becoming self-sufficient.
Play Board Games
When it comes to social-emotional activities, board games play a crucial part. They will learn how to wait patiently for their turn.
If they are losing or not getting their way, you can teach them how winning and losing are both parts of a game. Encourage them to try again.
Board games will help to add to your children’s ability to be tolerant and accepting.
Make a Deal
This activity will teach your child how to compromise. Make your own negotiating song, maybe on the lines ‘You want this but I want that’. You can use it whenever your kid is stuck on an idea and wouldn’t let go.
It is easy to give in to their stubbornness but it will not work in the long term. Brainstorm all the solutions that you can come up with and settle on the one that is acceptable to both you and your child.
Why Is Play Important for Children’s Social Development?
Kids learn from their environment. They are encouraged to play with others so that they can step out of their comfort zone.
By interacting with other children of the same age, they learn the art of teamwork, tolerance, and the importance of human interaction.
It also helps them to understand the essential social norms and gives them the ability to express themselves without being afraid.
Also Read: Making Online Classes Easier for You and Your Child
Conclusion
In this blog, we discussed the importance of social and emotional development skills for children. OurPlayschool.com organizes various activities for children’s emotional and social development.
Our multilingual classes help children to express themselves in the language that they are comfortable with.
Teaching kids the importance of being kind to others and being patient is important. Start early and start with us for the wholesome emotional and social development of your kids.