The Top Social Skills Your Child Needs to Learn for Kindergarten

With all the turmoil going on in the world right now, your life might be a little bit in limbo. Your child might have been set to start kindergarten, only for it to close before they got a chance to meet their teachers.

However, you might be stressing about something else – whether they’re even ready to start kindergarten or not. Whether your child is shy or outspoken, they’re going to have a much better time at kindergarten if they learn some very important social skills. Let’s talk about the top social skills your child needs to learn for kindergarten.

1.     Being Independent

While you’ve probably made most of your child’s decisions for them so far in their short life, there comes a time when they need to learn how to make their own decisions. For a lot of their decision-making, this skill won’t be needed for a few good years.

However, it’s still important to start instilling this type of skill now. When your child goes off to kindergarten, while they will be under the guidance of teachers, they will also be their own entity. This means that there will be times where they’ll need to make their own decisions. Through this skill, they can also learn to take risks while being safe.

2.     Express Their Feelings

One of the top social skills that children need to learn as they prepare to go to kindergarten is to be able to express themselves through their words. They’ll need to be able to articulate their feelings and needs so that others can understand them, and they can return the favor.

For your child to have a good understanding of words that can help them express their feelings, they need to have strong reading skills. Some of the best reading programs out there can teach your child how to sound out the words aloud, as well as read them in silence. This will boost their ability to express how they feel when the time comes.

3.     Sharing with Others

This might sound like nothing more than common sense, but when your child enters an environment like kindergarten, they’ll need to know how to share and use kind words when talking to others.

If they’re an only child, they might not be used to having to share things like food and their toys. However, they’ll find kindergarten a lot easier if they learn that sharing is important, and something they’ll be required to do quite a lot.

4.     Understanding That There are Consequences

In a kindergarten setting, your child is going to come up against peers that they like, and others that they don’t get along with so well. If this occurs, it’ll be important for your child to know the difference between right and wrong.

It is also important that they know that there are consequences when we do bad things. If they call someone a name, they’ll be a consequence – which they can learn from. If they have this skill, they will be able to navigate playing with others a bit better.

Your child might not be too far away from starting kindergarten. If this is the case, make sure that they’re equipped with the right tools so that they can thrive in their new learning environment.