Many parents worry that once they introduce their kids to technology, they’ll lose them to virtual friends and a social life conducted exclusively through texts and emoticons. I think most kids crave real-life, interpersonal interactions as much as the rest of us. In an environment where most of their friends interact online, the challenge is making sure your kids complement their online interactions with a healthy offline life.
Kids begin developing key communication skills between the ages of 8 and 13. Here’s how to make sure your kids have plenty of opportunities to develop those vital social skills that will help them nurture close friendships as they grow into adolescence and adulthood:
- Involve your child in extracurriculars like sports and activities that expose them to a real-life network. Outside of sports, scouts, performance arts and 4-H are just a few types of organizations that help kids develop communication and leadership skills. I recently got my 9-year-old involved in an organization called Destination Imagination, which combines engineering, creativity and performance/presentation skills.
- Most major social media sites stipulate that members must be 13 and older. Use this rule to your advantage. If your child wants to interact with friends online, restrict their interactions to texts that you can easily scroll through and check.
- Slowly introduce social media. When you feel it is appropriate, introduce your child to sites that are geared toward kids under 13. You and your child can then explore social media in a relatively safe environment together and begin learning the rules of appropriate, positive social media engagement.
- Decide when and where you allow electronics in your life. Be firm about your boundaries. You will send the message to your kids that while screen communication and virtual networks are wonderful complements to their social lives, electronics don’t get to control their time.
- Nurture conversation skills by eating meals together as a family, spend time together, have your kids call relatives on the phone, and provide them with opportunities to interact with adults of different generations. During these interactions, coach your kids on eye contact and manners.
- Remember when our kids were toddlers and we were all about scheduling playdates? As our kids get busy with school, homework and extracurriculars, it is easy to forget that scheduling face-to-face time with your kids’ friends is still important. Take a couple of hours on a weekend and have a friend over. Even if they spend some of that time playing a video game, they will still be interacting with each other.
What do you do to ensure your kids are developing a solid set of social skills?
