The Question: How do I get my kid to develop great social skills?
Parents have asked me how do I develop my kids social skills. Obviously you have them around other people in different social situations… duh
OR… There are a few things you can do that can greatly increase their skills that nobody talks about.
The Second thing I work on is The Voice. Three Things to think about are:
#1 Volume
When your kids are talking to each other or to adults you want them to practice talking nice and loud. A loud voice shows confidence. This is what you want your kids to show when they meet new people.
What if my kids are Shy?
Especially if you’re kids are shy! You want to get them talking nice and loud as much as possible. It’s OK to be sky. Introverts actually have an advantage. It’s easier for an introvert to learn the extrovert skills than versa visa.
The idea is, you want to get your kids better at social skills so if they can use both introvert and extrovert skills they will have an advantage over everyone else.
#2 Tone and Rhythm
… Avoid Droning, nobody wants to listen to that
We’ve all met someone that speaks in monotone and the same rhythm constantly. It’s automatic, we tune out and nobody wants to listen to them. They may have gotten use to being ignored but that is not a fun way to go through life.
When your kid is talking, you want them to change up the rhythm and vary the tone as they talk. A great way to do this is to work on storytelling. Have them speed up at exciting parts and slow down for sad parts. The tone goes up and down to better express the emotions of the story.
Use the confident tonal Curve…
When you end a sentence it can go 3 ways in tone. Steady, Up, or Down. Steady is just a regular sentence, it doesn’t really convey any emotion. Up is when you are asking a question. And Down is when you are making a statement with confidence and certainty.
You want to have you kids practice saying things with confidence you can practice the downward inflection at the end of a sentence. Don’t have them talk this way all the time, that gets weird. Just whenever they are trying to make a point.
#3 Articulation
If you can’t speak clearly then nobody will listen. This is pretty basic, but I’ve seen more than enough people that can’t speak clearly. They never got corrected for bad articulation. They never had a friend or parent that would correct them when they talked weird.
I’m not talking about an accent. Arnold Schwarzenegger took speech therapy when he started acting, not to get rid of his accent, to work on making his words easier to understand.
This is extremely important to learn when kids are young. If they speak clearly then all their peers and adults will want to listen when they talk. This builds confidence and social skills much faster.