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Goals for early elementary groups ages 4-8
•Keep your body and brain in the group
•Visual referencing
•Synchronizing your behavior w/others
•Sharing control
•Willing suspension of disbelief
•Use words and follow directions to coordinate play activity
•Most of all, have fun, become conditioned to wanting to work at playing with others
Video preview of group in action; http://vimeo.com/user15018735/review/57591172/a1057c38fa
Treatment Goals
•To feel successful having fun with age peers: Conditioning “Why try”
•To form meaningful relationships
•To behave in more expected ways in a group
•To demonstrate thinking of others by modifying behavior in prosocial ways
•Improve self-esteem
•Improve academic performance
•Reduce meltdowns, aggression, work refusal
•Develop skills to get needs met in society
•Increase chances of performing in a meaningful and contributing way in groups
What are Social Skills?
•Self-awareness
•Self-control and emotional control
•Perspective taking/empathy/TOM
•Conversation skills
•Extremely complex and hard to measure
•Subjective AND a lifelong journey!
•Reliant on inner language/executive functions
Recommendations for those planning to facilitate a group:
•Make the term short, 6-12 weeks; keeps you and them from burning out, can rearrange personality conflicts
•Have a plan and be ready to change it, post an agenda, have a backup plan
•Be flexible and let them go if they are engaging in social interaction
•Have a behavior management system
•Be prepared for it to be messy and disorganized- they wouldn’t be here if they didn’t need it, storming and norming
•Use content that speaks to their interests
•Involve parents and teachers; surveys, follow up, Q&A, handouts
•Split the time between didactic instruction/structured exercises and fun games, use first-then
•Including a girl often makes the boys behave better, especially if she’s cute and a little bossy
•Don’t make boys act like girls- sitting still, hands to selves, compliments, interruptions
•Don’t nitpick, overlook some errors and use others as teachable moments, don’t push too hard if they are reluctant or check out; baby steps, the less YOU talk the better
•Remember the art of “allowing”
•Make having fun your primary emphasis
•If you get stuck in a rut, change it up, go outside, watch a video, have a snack
•Screen participants, don’t include those who “won’t” or may be aggressive
•Seek buy in from teachers and/or parents
•Ask teachers to commit to coaching skills and language taught weekly outside of group
•Ask parents to participate and bring prizes, snacks- if they pay first they will show up and play
Social Skills Enable People:
•Cooperation and Collaboration
•Employability
•Satisfaction
•Recovery from stress and trauma
•Get needs met without violating the rights of others
•Altruism
•Successful academic performance