Tips for Parents: How to Make and Keep Friends - Promoting Pro-Social Behavior

A few themes emerged from our discussions of promoting prosocial behavior of PG kids. These include:

1. Assess your Child's Skills, Knowledge and Motivation
   Determine whether your child exhibits a skill deficit, performance deficit or just simply lacks motivation to interact with children of the same age. The intervention approach must match the deficit.
2. Skill Deficit
   Children with a skill deficit do not know what to do when asked. For example, when asked how to greet a new friend, the child would not be able to give an appropriate answer. The intervention would begin by teaching the child appropriate social skills
3. Performance Deficits
   A performance deficit occurs when the child can tell you what he or she should do but does not do it in the real situation. The intervention must create supports for the child in the real situation to perform the skills. This is VERY tough to remediate. It takes a lot of support and practice.
4. Motivating the Unmotivated
   Many of the children in our discussion experienced little motivation to make and keep friends with their classmates or neighborhood peers. One of the reasons for the lack of motivation may be the belief that the PG child did not need the other kids or they could not relate to them. In this case, interventions must proceed with caution. If the PG child is happy and not upset with the lack of interaction then it may not be the appropriate time to intervene. The child must want to change. However, this does not mean the child can ignore, be rude or exhibit inappropriate behavior. PG kids will spend their life dealing with people who are of less intelligence, with less problem solving skills and less of an ability to multi-task. They should be encouraged to develop coping strategies for these situations at a young age.
5. Don't Teach in Crises
   When children are in the midst of a tough situation, parents or teachers can do nothing but manage the situation. We must teach strategies to prevent the situation at when the child is calm. Practice using modeling, role-play and analog situations during calm, rational moments and then encourage the skills to transfer to the times of crises.

Specific Strategies for Promoting Pro-Social Skills

• Teach
  • If the issue is a skill deficit you will need to teach your child the missing skills. Treat this like teaching any other skill (getting dressed, driving a car). Practice, Practice, Practice.
• Practice
  • Practice skills by Role Playing, creating stories and make believe about successful interactions, modeling and creating practice situations.
• In vivo practice
  • Coach the child during a real interaction. Have a plan for the social situation; practice the plan and then coach during the situation. You may want to set up a secret code for you and the child to encourage them to use appropriate skills.
• Debrief
  • Talk about successful and unsuccessful situations after the situation is defused. Place as much emphasis on the positive interactions and successful play date as the unsuccessful ones.
• Set up successful situations
  • Successful Play dates
    • Create a structured play date that leaves little room for conflict. Sometimes a trip to the zoo or movies can provide the activity and talking topics. Make sure the play date is short so that it ends on a positive note.
  • Plan
    • Create a plan for the play date. Schedule games, activities or breaks ahead of time.
    • Create a plan for handling conflict between the children involved.
• Have realistic expectations
  • If your child is unmotivated to play with Johnny next door, the chance of a successful play date is remote. Set basic expectations of polite behavior but follow your child’s cue for creating social experiences with other kids.

Resources

The Tough Kid Social Skills Book, Susan M. Sheridan, Ph.D. Sopris West Publishing
Provides assessment, intervention and follow up information to create effective social skills interventions in the school.

Magination Press
Publishes numerous kid friendly books on feelings, making friends, bullying and other possibly relevant topics.