How to support a six year old with her social skills

[Mahler3]

Hi Community,

I am am mom to a six year old first grader in Germany. (So please excuse misspelling or poor grammar 🙈) Our daughter has been diagnosed recently. We already get parenting coaching on a monthly basis. Although the therapist suggests not to intervene if we witness or notice problems in social interaction with other kids, I still wonder and am curious how you handle such situations.

After all its called people skills for a reason and wouldn’t you get tutoring for your kid if it has a hard time with math?

I sense that Johanna struggles with cognitive empathy. It seems to be hard for her to understand her peers needs and intentions, feels offended easily as she gets other kids wrong and reacts inappropriate.

My gut tells me to sit down withe her and explain to her, for instance, that her friend is uncomfortable playing horses all the time for example and that it is not ok to tell her to keep going anyway.

Once she has figured out what someone else is trying to tell her she is very empathetic but very often she doesn’t get there and gets frustrated when kids don’t want to play with her anymore. You can picture the reasons but still should watch her suffering as she is supposed to find put by herself? I have a hard time to see the point in that. Apparently she doesn’t and has from one negative experience after another, because of that.

I feel kind of lost and appreciate your input!

[Imakecutebabies]

Kids definitely need to be taught social skills. We work on them regularly, constantly, all the time, at home, on playdates, and through occupational therapy and social skills groups at school. What on earth was the reason given to not intervene when she's struggling with a social interaction? Usually my son's peers are grateful if I intervene and explain to him what they are experiencing... As they get older I can see it being better to wait to debrief with them after the fact to avoid embarrassing them.

[Mahler3 in reply to Imakecutebabies]

Dear Imakecutebabies,

thank you so much for your response!

The therapist said, it would be unnecessary, since kids would learn from each other. If I intervened, I would take that learning experience from her. 🤷🏻‍♀️ But she does not draw the right conclusions from the reactions of other kids to her behavior. All she is learning right now, that she does not fit in anywhere and how to be frustrated about being unable to make friends. Sign me up for taking away the experience of not getting along with classmates, neighborkids, playdates and the other girls on her hockeyteam.

Unfortunately there is no social worker or guidance counselor at her elementary school not to mention social skills groups.

Therapists are not easy to find either. We spend eight month on a waiting list for this one - and we live in a dense populated area with two major cities being five and fifteen miles away.

Do you happen to have any book recommendations? Your society seems to be much more aware of the need and experienced in supporting kids.

[Imakecutebabies in reply to Mahler3]

There are a couple curricula that my son's OT used with him. Looks like they are all made by Social Thinking:

The Superflex books:

socialthinking.com/Products...

The We Thinkers! books:

socialthinking.com/we-think....

The Zones of Regulation:

socialthinking.com/zones-of...

My son's school counselor used the Zones of Regulation as well as the Kimochis, with all students:

kimochis.com/

I haven't personally read any of them except the We Thinkers! ones, because they let my son take a few of those home for a few weeks. They have these 4 kids who react to various situations in different ways and have the reader stop and discuss it as you go and very explicitly show the outcomes of each reaction.

We did training on the "Zones of Regulation" with him, but since it is not about OTHERS but rather about HIM, he would hide. He understood it in theory but didn't like talking about himself. Much easier for him to discuss others in the third person.

[Mamamichl]

thank you for sharing! I had the same issues growing up. Role playing with your kid may help. I’ve also been seeing ads for tapout where it’s like role playing and shows the right way in real life kids situations. It looks expensive, but I was thinking about doing the 2 week trial this summer. tapouts.com/?gad_source=1&g...

[Mahler3 in reply to Mamamichl]

tapouts looks great! I‘ll definitely will contact them to see, if we can work something out like me assisting as a interpreter in sessions. For there is absolutely nothing like that on the market over here.

[Mamamichl in reply to Mahler3]

There’s also “everyday speech”

everydayspeech.com

[MyDogAteMyRitalin]

Hello! Yes, kids need to be taught social skills. I’m not sure about intervening in the specific interactions, but when you are alone with your daughter there are some things you can try to be proactive about this. You want to set her up for success. Some suggestions are “social stories” which are basically books about situations she might find herself in or watching the show Daniel Tiger (I ‘m not sure if she understands English or it exists in Germany.). Also, a speech therapist can work with her on empathetic speech and social cues. Good luck!

[Mahler3 in reply to MyDogAteMyRitalin]

Hi MyDogAteMy Ritalin,

thank you so much! Found Daniel Tiger, synchronized to German on youtube. Will check it out.

Also looked for US trained speech specialists over here. Found one close to an US Army base. The German equivalent Logopaedist only treats speech impediments. It’ so typical. German culture lacks awareness for the importance of communication skills. We tend to communicate straight forward and less friendly. In difficult work related conversations I still benefit from a simple computer based training I received when working as a sales person in a music store in NYC 20something years ago.

[Giggling]

Hi there,

What I believe is happening, similar to my son at times, is lack of perspective. Often ADHD children are unable to understand how they come across to others and that they have to do a bit of give and take when it comes to playing with others.

This is where I think you can help, letting them understand that they should let others lead in play at times and to participate in the games others choose as people will feel good about them for doing that. They may not always enjoy the give and take but this is how they build friendships. Many children with ADHD lack flexibility and we have to encourage they work on that, as it will benefit them greatly in the long run.

You will need to help them with perspective often in the beginning until they start to understand, perhaps not in the exact moment when things aren't going well, but relative soon after the interaction, as I find children learn best "in the moment".

I find that when you do it much later they can't always see the lesson. Although kids learn to build their executive functioning skills with other kids, they need you as support to help guide them in the beginning.

[Mahler3 in reply to Giggling]

Good point, Giggling! I will keep it in mind!

[Aspen797]

Many kids learn from natural cause and effect what works in social relationships and what doesn’t. That said, many kids who are neurodivergent do not innately learn from these situations and remain confused as to why they are being socially rejected. I think it is a kindness to work on social skills with children. A method that avoids criticism is to note the behavior at issue in the moment but do not correct it at the time. Instead, identify the positive opposite behavior that is expected, and teach the expected behavior through one on one game play with you, through social stories, and role play. We use the starting expression, “ Did you know…” to explain an expected social behavior or emotional response to a behavior as that is non-accusatory but merely informative. A webpage that does a good job of covering a lot of these strategies is here: raisingchildren.net.au/auti.... If you click on ‘resources’ at the bottom it will provide more reading. Fred Frankel’s “Friends Forever: How Parents Can Help Their Kids Make and Keep Good Friends” is helpful as is Caroline Maguire’s “Why Will No One Play with Me? “ Which won a top ADHD book award for teaching friendship skills.

[Momonthego16]

haven’t read it yet, but Dr. Barkley suggested a book titled Patents as Friendship Coaches for Children with ADHD. It looks good and is all about how we can help our kids in the moment to learn and apply skills. I am really hoping it helps because I have an 8 y/o daughter who is struggling to not alienate friends with some impulsive or reactive behaviors. Play therapy has also really helped in the 2 months we’ve had her going. She goes weekly for 1 hour.

[Momonthego16 in reply to Momonthego16]

I also do thought experiments with her by asking “what are some things you could do?” And I help her brainstorm ALL the options, good or bad. Then I ask “what would probably happen if you did that?” And we do that for each option. Then I ask “what do you want to happen?” And then ask “which of those options gets you matching consequences?” It takes a long time the first few times but has paid off. I also tell her, “the easy action may not get the consequence you want but I know you can do hard things.”