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Children's Social Competence
Posted on August 11, 2016 by First Last
Before we going
through this, the first concept we have to understand is social competence,
what is social competence? Social competence refers to a person’s ability to
get along with other people. A child’s social competence is affected by how
well she communicates with other children and with adults. A child’s views of
himself or herself in relation to his or her family, peers, and the wider world
also affect the social competence. Social competence includes knowing what is
expected for social interactions, such as making eye contact, taking turns,
listening to others, not being aggressive; understanding (or ‘reading’ other
people’s facial expressions and gestures; recognizing emotions in others and
oneself; and being able to communicate effectively with others, including
family members, peers and adults (Parker, 1987).
In a simple
understandable way of saying the concept above is social competence is a
ability, similar as people learning how to swim, how to ride a bike and so on,
again, it is a kind of ability, that needs to be trained and learnt. This is
the misconception for large numbers of parents, who simply understand that shy
equals to child’s personality and just left out the more important element –
social competence.
How the social
competence developed?
A child’s social
development right starts from the birth. The people around the babies all have
impact to them. Don’t understand it wrong, even a baby, who does understand and
can observe what people doing and how they interact, and try to imitate all
from language, gestures, why of communication, way of listening and so on. The
only difference between babies and adults is baby cry to let caregivers know
what they need and adults do both verbal and non-verbal channels.
Most children’s
social skills increase dramatically during early childhood stage, so it is
important to keep in mind that children of the same age may not have the same
level of social competence. Research shows that children have distinct
personalities and temperaments from birth. Some children may face special
challenges when they interact with peers and adults. Thus it is important for parents or
caregivers to have the mindset to facilitate children’s social competence
learning from the early childhood stage.
A good example
is that children use rough hands for snatching toys from other children.
Apparently it is a stage around two years (as known ‘terrible two’), which is true,
at this stage, the most effective way for children to express themselves is to
use their hands just snatch what they want from others rather using verbal
communication, it is part of the learning curve. However, as parents, we can
not just simply ignore what has happened, a proper guidance is needed to set
the foundation of social competence for children to cope with in more complex
situation at daycare.
Furthermore, in
a social context, how confident the parents are directly impact on what
children’s confidence level. I have mentioned it to many parents that as many
years of operating childcare experience in New Zealand, I can easily see what a
child’s parents behave in the public and what child(ren)’s confidence level and
way of interact with other children and teachers. What I found fascinating was
large numbers of parents when drop off children to childcare or pick up from
the childcare, just simply go in and engage to their child(ren) rather than
being aware of what surrounding environment, such as what has happened? What is
happening? What other children are doing? And What teachers are doing and so
on. By doing this, because of limited of language understanding, children will
also focus on parents’ non-verbal activities, if far too focus on children,
which will somehow confuse the children and they could also interpret that my
mum or dad not that confident among adults environment in the daycare for some
cases. This is a good example to
illustrate what we need to be doing in the public setup to demonstrate what a
confident person looks like and how they act and react. This is a role
modelling for children to gain social competence from real life situations.
As for a
migrant, children and family members experience multiple cultures, behavior
that is appropriate or effective in one culture may be less so in another
culture. Children from diverse cultural and family backgrounds thus may need
help in bridging their differences and in finding ways to learn from and enjoy
one another. The parents, as the very first teacher, we have to keep learning
as well, for a different culture, we as parents need to understand what is the
mainstream core value proposition, then we can proper assist our child(ren) to
learn.
Any queries or need further information, all Happy Tots staff are happy to assist, you could either call us on 0800 20 8000 or email us on info@happytots.co.nz