School is more than learning academic subjects, as it provides an environment where children learn essential life skills that will take them through childhood and into adulthood, where they will hopefully become valued contributors to society.
Developing social skills is important for children, and where better to learn them than alongside their peers in an environment that is safe and controlled. The skills that they develop at school allow them to build positive relationships and achieve positive long-term outcomes that extend beyond the individual.
Research has shown that social and emotional development influences the long-term well-being and health of the individual. In short, children with strong emotional and social skills are in general:
- more likely to achieve better at school
- more likely to graduate from college
- more likely to obtain better jobs
- more likely to be in full-time employment as adults
- more likely to be socially mobile
- less likely to be involved with crime
- less likely to be involved in substance abuse
Emotional and social development does not make a child smarter, rather they make the child more open to learning, cooperative and able to display self-discipline. So, what are these social and emotional skills that children learn through school? Here are 5 social skills that children learn at school.
1. Listening
Listening is a key skill that children refine at school. They need to listen to their teacher to understand instructions and what is required of them. With very young children, listening can be tricky to master, but it is a critical skill that helps to develop their ability to pay attention and a lesson in being self-controlled. Listening skills are not just developed in formal classroom settings, but through storytelling, songs and gameplay.
2. Follow directions
Listening to others is important for childhood development but being able to follow directions demands the child to comprehend what is being said to them and it is essential for language development. There are different types of instructions that children learn as they get older:
- Basic: these are one step instructions, e.g. stand up or sit down.
- Sequential: these require several instructions to be followed, e.g. tidy up your pencils and then stand in a line.
- Quantitative and spatial: the child needs to follow directions but not necessarily in the order that they are given, e.g., before you go to play, finish your reading.
- Conditional: the child needs to understand that they have to satisfy conditions to complete the instruction, e.g., you can go to play when you have finished your reading.
3. Obey social rules
Rules impact every aspect of living in a community. We are governed by laws – you must drive on a certain side of a road, or you mustn’t take someone else’s possessions without permission, but there are social rules that children need to know so that they understand what is expected of them. Social rules include:
- Speak to people politely
- Take turns talking
- Pay attention to others’ body language and facial expressions
- Think before acting
Obeying social rules is important for children to be able to make and maintain friendships.
4. Cooperation
Learning to cooperate is a key skill for children to develop, as it requires using a combination of the above skills to seek a solution. Resolving conflict allows the children to enhance their perception of someone else’s opinion while understanding their own position from a different vantage point. Role-playing is a great way to introduce children to new perspectives and ways of thinking beyond their own beliefs.
5. Responsibility
Children quickly learn that they are accountable for their words and actions and must fit into the school community by obeying the social rules. They learn that their behavior affects other people – either positively or negatively. Responsibility can be developed through positive reinforcements – rewarding the child for small tasks that they complete such as taking the register to the office, monitoring whether the pencils need sharpening, or keeping the library books straight.
Children learn about how their actions and words carry consequences – they need to be able to listen, follow directions and cooperate. Children learn about self-discipline when they are given responsibilities.
The Importance of Play to Develop Social and Emotional Skills
You will have noticed that many of these emotional and social skills are enhanced through play. Playtime is critical for a child’s development and ability to learn. Play allows children to engage and interact with the world around them, practice adult roles that they have observed and develop resilience and confidence.
School playground equipment is important to encourage imaginative play and games. When children play together, they are free from the constraints that adults’ expectations place on them. Child-led play develops the following skills:
- Playing in groups
- Sharing
- Leadership skills
- Conflict resolution
- Decision making
- Understanding what makes them happy
- Imagination and creativity
Play and unscheduled time provide children with the opportunity to interact with their peers and test out their skills. They quickly learn what works and what doesn’t, what is socially acceptable and what is less popular.
Playtime is an important time to give children a physical vent for their energy, and it has been found to increase their academic success – the brain behaves like a muscle and gets fatigued by repeated exercises. The reduction in free-time recess and PE lessons could be seen to contribute to the gender gaps between boys’ learning capacities, and that of girls – the push for more deskbound styles of learning does not give them the physical outlet that they need.
It is not only the school’s responsibility to allow for free-play. Parents need to be educated on the importance of unscheduled time too. Overscheduled children have been seen to react to the demands on their time with symptoms that are typically associated with stress such as anxiety which can have a detrimental effect on their long-term health and well-being.
There are so many influencing factors on the long-term success of a child, but research has shown that their emotional and social development is a key player. It takes a community to raise a child, and the skills that they learn in a supportive educational environment are central to helping the individual child to grow into a valued member of society.
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