Friendships

Friendships, and the next Content Page (Homework) are the last two Pages of the IEP for Home. It can be very rewarding to teach your child about Friendships and also about Homework. However, it will be much harder to do if your child has not already mastered most or all of the goals and objectives of the first six Content Pages.

Congratulate yourself if you have already mastered the previous pages. If you have not yet mastered the previous pages, review those pages and also read the section below. It will help you to understand why teaching about Friendships comes at the end of the IEP for Home. When you read the Content Page on Homework, you’ll discover even more teaching challenges that explain why Homework comes at the end of the IEP for Home.

Friendship and social skills are more difficult to teach than the skills discussed in the preceding pages. Many of the skills that you taught in the first six Content Pages can be broken down into just one or two steps at a time. When teaching about sleep, you can start out by just teaching your child to wake up at a consistent time. When teaching your child to eat well, you can teach your child to eat eat on a schedule, or to only try out one new food at a time. When teaching about rules, you can focus on just one rule at a time.

This Content Page will show you how to teach Friendships skills “just one step at a time,” just like the skills you may have taught using the other Content Pages. However, as you teach about friendships, you’ll quickly discover that it’s hard to separate all of the skills needed for socializing successfully, or for building friendships. You will have to work on several skills all at once, and your child will have to learn to use more than one skill at a time.

Here’s an example of what I mean. You will have to be a good friend to your child, so that they know what being a good friend looks like. The Content Page on Positive Relationships can give you some ideas. You will have to teach your child to be a good friend for their peers. See the specific skills in the ‘objectives’ bgelow. Then, you may even need to teach your child’s peers to teach your child. This strategy is especially valuable. Your child is more likely to listen to their peers than to just listen to you. Keep this information in mind as you read this page. Be patient with yourself, your child, and your child’s peers. It can take children and adolescents a while to get all of the social and friendship skills lined up and ready for use, especially when there are two or more peers who need some instruction.

Goal

Teach your child skills needed to socialize successfully and build friendships

Objectives

Objective #1. Teach social skills with familiar peers in familiar settings. Teach your child to interact with just one familiar peer for short intervals. Teach conventional social skills appropriate for any social interaction. Conventional social skills include sharing, turn-taking, and following rules. If you have taught your child these skills when building a Positive relationship, it will be much easier for your child to do the same when playing with peers. But, playing with peers is not the same as playing with adults. Your child’s peers might not have the same patience as you have for your child. Your child’s peers might get upset when they discover that your child is not very skilled at following rules of sharing, taking turns, and following rules. Give your child’s peers a strategy to use when your child forgets to respect social rules.

Objective #2. Teach social skills with non-familiar peers and in new social situations. Teach your child how to generalize the social conventions of sharing, turn-taking, and following rules with different social partners, in different settings, and during varied activities. Your child might not realize right away that turn-taking, sharing, and following rules are the same, even if the situation is different.

Teach your child to address the social breakdowns that can occur when your child or their peers have not mastered the skills of sharing, turn-taking, and following rules.

Objective #3. Teach about Friendships. Teach your child the skills needed to build and deepen friendships. Improve your child’s communication skills to assure successful social relations and to deepen friendships. Help your child manage the emotions that come up when building friendships.

Sidebar: Special message about screen time

Screen time can and does interfere with building social relationships. Screen-based activities (videos, movies, video games) grab our attention and prevent us from paying attention to other people. The whole point of building social skills is to pay attention to others, not pay attention to the screen! See what you can do to constrain screen time, especially the non-social kind of screen time. If you’re having difficulty getting your child off the screen, try limiting your own screen time. Then, try teaching your child to limit their exposure to screen time.

Even though screen time has a bad reputation for building social skills, you can use screen time advantageously when you are first teaching your child. Make a point of using screen time to then build up social skills. For example, you can show an interest in your child’s preferred screen time activities. Why do you enjoy this game? What did you notice about this video? You can discuss what you saw in a video or a movie, and focus on what the characters or personalities believe, think, or know. Is this actor showing good social skills? If your child is still learning basic skills, you can potentially use the screen to teach about turn taking, or sharing the play agenda. For example, you can say: I want to look at this movie. Which movie do you want to see? How many minutes will we play my game before we play your choice of game? Or, use screen time for Face-to-face socializing.

After you’ve done the above, find times when the screen is off, and see if you can continue to do the same teaching or coaching in real time and with real people. Real-time social situations are challenging because they contain so much more information. Socializing successfully in real-time situations requires many more social skills than the type of socializing that we do when using a screen. Take time with your child to notice what people do in the grocery store, in a restaurant, or on the playground. These are all great platforms for learning the skills discussed in this Content Page.

friendships:

what additional information do i need?

Objective #1: Teach social skills with familiar peers in familiar settings.

Many of our everyday social interactions are scripted and predictable. The location, conversations, and activity might look different, but the basic structure is the same. Your child needs to first learn about the rehearse-able and predictable rules and conventions of social interactions. They provide the structure needed to socialize successfully.

Social conventions include sharing, taking turns, and knowing the rules or conventions. Imaginary play, games, and conversations all have rules or conventions. Your child needs to understand what sharing, taking turns, and following rules looks like when socializing. Sharing and taking turns are foundational and have to be taught first. Rules and conventions in imaginary play, games, and conversations are the next steps to master.

Children show conventional play behaviors or play themes when they pretend to play house, pretend to go on an outing, or act out stories and scenes from books, movies, or videoclips. Imaginary play behaviors can occur when they play with dolls or puppets, but can also occur as dramatic play (dress up).

When children play games, they follow conventional rules, such as the rules of board games, card games, or sports activities. When children and adolescents have conversations with each other, they use conversational conventions. As long as each child understands the play theme or activity, knows the rules of the game, is able to use some conversational scripts, and can share and take turns, many or most social interactions should go well. We can put the skills above into a logical hierarchy, but they actually all have to occur together, throughout the social event.

• Sharing

• Taking turns

• Conventions in play activities

• Conventions and rules in rule-based games

• Conventions and rules in conversations

The skills just listed are typically not possible for children with a developmental age below three years. Starting at a developmental age of 3 to 5 years (it will depend upon the child), sharing, turn-taking, and the ability to follow conventions and rules can be taught. Why is the transition between age 3 and 5 so important? It’s because of the developmental emergence of impulse control. Impulse control refers to the capacity to stop, think, and then act instead of just doing the first thing that comes to mind. Children aged 4 years can be taught rules and can be taught to stop and and remember those rules before they act. impulse control opens the door to act strategically. It offers a lot of opportunities in social situations. That said, impulse control, and all of the skills outlined above, still require adult support for several years. With adult support, practice, and corrective feedback, children can show these skills quite consistently by the time they reach a developmental age of six. Sharing, taking turns, and following rules can be taught in 1:1 or small group settings.

Many children with disabilities take a long time to master all of the skills listed above. Professionals can help you to create realistic expectations for your child, if they are not developmentally ready for all of the skills listed above. Your child may need your help for a longer period of time before reaching mastery.

Teach them when they are already being successful.

A good strategy is to catch your child when they’re being socially successful. It may not seem important to teach the above skills when the social interaction is going well. For example, you may not feel the need to teach your child if they are sharing, taking turns, or following rules successfully. It might seem as though you are interfering with the children’s play. Even so, take a moment to do some teaching.

Children and adolescents need to know what it feels like and looks like when things are going well. It helps them to apply what they know in other settings. Point out and notice when your child is sharing, taking turns, and following rules successfully. A few strategic teaching moments can make a big difference to your child and their peers. It will be much easier to teach your child in non-familiar settings with non-familiar peers if you have already started the process with familiar peers in familiar settings. Check out the accordion bullets below for more information on the same topics.

Objective #2: Teach social skills with non-familiar peers and in unfamiliar settings

Your child will not always have familiar peers to play with. Part of your instruction will have to include socializing with non-familiar peers. As you read through this section, you’ll notice that one difference between objective #2 and Objective #1 is that you might not have as much control over your child’s learning experience. This can be challenging for some children, but is also an important learning opportunity. Most of your teaching will occur before and after the social activity. When needed, you can intervene and coach your child through a breakdown. Other differences will become apparent to you as you work your way through the paragraphs that follow.

Social conventions of making greetings, sharing, taking turns. Before a social event, remind your child about how to make greetings; what it looks like to share toys and share play ideas; and what it looks like to take turns in a game or during imaginary play. You may need to provide this coaching for older children and adolescents too, to help make sure that turn-taking and sharing the conversational topic occur as expected. If you are clear that your child knows these skills, teach your child to teach their peers to follow the skills if they do not do so on their own. For example, your child might need to provide coaching to another child who does not know about sharing or turn-taking.

Peer coaching. Coaching in between peers is an important learning opportunity. Your child will gain greater mastery if they can provide coaching to their peers. However, some of the time, it’s your child who is not sharing or taking turns consistently. This can happen even though you provided all of the necessary instruction. When this occurs, you may need to coach your child’s peers to remind your child about sharing and turn-taking. Feedback from peers is often the best learning tool for children. If feels less intrusive than adult feedback. It is usually more meaningful and more highly motivating. Peer feedback will have a bigger impact than adult feedback, as long as the feedback is supportive and is focused on the desired skills that are so important for social success.

Advance planning. When your child is socializing in an unfamiliar setting with unfamiliar peers, you may need to do some advance planning to set up a successful social interaction. You can still ask your child’s peers to provide coaching to your child, but you may wish to check in with their parents first. The social interaction might go better if the parents of the peer agree to provide some coaching. Even better is when their child provides the coaching to your child. You can explain to others that your child is still learning how to share and take turns (for example), and might need some reminders to share and take turns consistently. Similarly, your child may need more instruction about the play theme, the game, or the content of the conversation. Peers can provide your child with a ‘heads-up’ about how the social interaction is likely to go. With this coaching and feedback, your child’s success will likely go up.

Conversational conventions. Adults should remind children and youth of all ages about conversational conventions that work in most or all situations. These will be especially important in formal and unfamiliar settings, where greetings, sharing, and turn-taking are so important. That said, the adult may discover that older children and adolescents have their own social conventions for starting, maintaining, and ending a social interaction. The adult can express curiosity about how the child or adolescent has modified what they were taught. For example, they can ask how the adolescent uses greetings and other conventions in their social interactions. The adolescent may have their own way of following their parents’ advice, even if the words they use are different from the ones they were taught by adults.

Rules of the game. Some of the time, your child may need to teach another child about rules in a game. Children who are past a developmental age of 8 to 9 years can often explain rules successfully. When not successful, children and adolescents may need to turn to adults and get mentorship about how to explain rules of a game to a peer who is not familiar.

Conventional play themes. Some of the time, your child may need some instruction or information about the play theme or subject matter. Children who are past a developmental age of 8 to 9 years should be able to provide information about the nature of the play theme and be able to coach their peers when needed. As children age into middle and high school, they should have less and less adult supervision, and only turn to adults when they are unable to solve social breakdowns.

Social breakdowns. Social breakdowns are both common and predictable. They are due to a failure of one or more peers to take turns, share ideas, or share resources. Some of the time, they are due to a child not understanding the rules and conventions of the game or the conversation. These terms help children explain why social interactions are successful, why social breakdowns occur, and how to work through a social breakdown using supportive feedback.

Supportive feedback can be hard to find when social breakdowns occur! Children and adolescents commonly struggle to manage social breakdowns. They often don’t have the words they need to provide feedback in a supportive way that fosters more successful social interactions. They often don’t coach each other, and instead, just get frustrated. The terms used in this Content Page are helpful and should be taught to both your child and their peers, familiar and unfamiliar. When children have words to say what they want, they are more likely to experience success.

When needed, adults can (and should) step in to show the children how to address social breakdowns. Children and youth should be left to sort out their differences some of the time. However, they should not be left to sort out their differences if this only leads to failure. Do provide some support to assure that the social interactions go well, at least most of the time. After providing some support, the adult can then step away again and allow the children or adolescents to practice their social skills on their own. See the section entitled: “How do I speak with my child about social interactions?” for additional suggestions and ideas.

Objective #3. Teach about Friendships

Friendships can occur after social conventions are mastered. Friendships typically start to emerge at a developmental age of 6 to 8 years. It might seem unusual to speak about ‘building’ or ‘teaching’ about friendships. Children are supposed to build friendships on their own, without the interference of adults. However, not all children develop friendships easily. The reasons for not developing friendships can be predictable. You can teach your child about friendships when you consider the skills that most children have when they start developing friendships. See the list below:

• Duration of social interactions. The first shift that occurs in typically developing children is that social interactions become longer. Children spend more time with other children. Increased duration of social interactions is possible when children have a longer attention span, but it also depends upon being able to sustain social skills and social conventions consistently over longer time intervals.

• Complexity of social interactions. Children know more about the world in general. They have more interests and skills to discuss and share with others. In early school age years, play activities continue to be scripted and rule-based, but the scripts are longer and the number of rules is higher. Rule-based games become important. Children have to remember more and more rules for different card games, board, games, or sports activities. Children who have difficulty understanding more complex play themes, or rules, may have difficulty with prolonged social interactions and with building friendships.

• Conversational skills and communication skills. As children age into older childhood and into adolescence, conversations and communication take on equal or greater importance. A shared activity is no longer sufficient. Children and adolescents expect to be able to have conversations. Your child now needs to respond to peers with an appropriate response. Your child needs to be able to maintain a topic, and discover topics that are interesting both to your child and to your child’s peers. Children whose language skills are not developing successfully can struggle in this aspect of socializing and building friendships.

• Shared interests. Your child’s ability to build friendships depends upon shared interests. You and your child will have to find activities that are mutually interesting for your child and one or more peers.

• Emotion-regulation skills. Your child’s ability to build friendships depends upon the ability to regulate emotions. When still young, many children need some adult support to manage emotions such as anxiety or frustration. Most children know that it’s comforting to speak with a trusted adult. They also learn about feelings of safety and security when they live in a home with trusted adults. Older children and adolescents develop these same feelings of connection with their peers. When this occurs, they are likely building friendships. Children who struggle to regulate their emotions may not be able to build friendships as quickly or as easily as their peers. They are expected to regulate their frustrations and fears on their own, and not let their emotions interfere with the social interaction. Some children continue to struggle regulating their emotions as they age into the school age years and higher grades, even after their peers have mastered this skill.

How adults can teach children about building friendships.

• Communication breakdowns. If your child is having difficulty with conversational skills and communication, you may need to listen carefully and help your child discover where communication breakdowns occur. You can step in to help your child in their communication. This strategy can work, but not if you end up stepping into your child’s social interactions too often. If your child is struggling with communication, they may need some scripts to use when they misunderstand the communication. For example, you can teach your child to use a script such as: “I missed that. Can you repeat what you said?” It may be worthwhile practicing communication skills with your child, so that they have some strategies to address communication breakdowns.

• Sharing, turn-taking, understanding. Always consider whether sharing and turn-taking are being addressed. For example, if your child has difficulty managing impulses, they may not share and take turns consistently. They may need to be taught a ‘repair’ strategy when they forget to follow the rules. Their peers may need to provide them with coaching. If they are overly focused on a topic or activity of interest, their peers may need to tell them when it’s their turn to choose the topic or play activity, and when they have to go along with someone else’s preferred topic or activity.

• Misperceptions. Social breakdowns also occur when a peer misperceives their peer to not share ideas and resources, or not take turns. A child or adolescent can misperceive a peer to understand a conversational topic, game, or topic of interest, even when this is not the case. Just as commonly, social breakdowns occur when two peers both misperceive the other. Children can develop friendships when they recognize their own misperceptions and have strategies to discuss them. Making social repairs is part of what allows for longer-term social successes. In fact, learning how to repair breakdowns is a hallmark of friendship and allows for friendships to deepen and grow.

• Thinking about thinking. Reflecting upon friendships and upon peers. Children become interested in their thoughts and feelings about friends. They then also become interested in the thoughts and feelings of their friends. You can help your child build friendship skills when you provide coaching about sharing and turn-taking, about shared interests, about the different reasons why social interactions break down, and why all of us sometimes struggle in our social relations.   

• Intense emotions. Intense emotions can occur as a result of misperceptions in social situations. They can also occur as a natural part of socializing. They can also occur as a sign that your child is struggling with emotion-regulation in general. Even though all children benefit from learning about their emotions, its especially important to teach the child with emotion-regulation difficulties about their emotions. Children can develop friendships when they understand the intense emotions that can occur within friendships, and when they have strategies for describing and discussing them. Peers are often at a loss for what to do when one of their play mates gets frustrated or scared too quickly. For children who struggle regulating their emotions in general, you may need to provide some strategies to help your child regulate emotions. You may also need to provide your child’s peers with some tips to coach your emotional child. Just being able to label an emotion already makes it more manageable. Basic emotions are happy, mad, scared, and sad. Social emotions include pride, embarrassment, shame, guilt. Learning what it looks like and feels like when they experience these emotions is a good starting point. Then, you can share examples of why and when these emotions occur. Be sure to include ‘misperceptions’ in your teaching! Too often, emotions occur because of misperceptions.

How do I speak with my child about social skills and friendships?

Your child will need to learn the words needed to describe successful social interactions and how to talk about breakdowns They also need to master some scripts so that they can initiate, maintain, and end social interactions successfully. The suggestions listed here are examples that are useful to many or most children. They only provide a few ideas. You might not find enough ideas to help with your child’s specific needs. Consult with professionals at your child’s school or elsewhere to learn about other words or skills not discussed in this Content Page.

Words that describe successful social interactions.

• I’m going to teach you about sharing. Sharing means letting other people use your toys, or letting other people talk about what they want to talk about.

• I’m going to teach you about taking turns. Taking turns means that you don’t always get to play first. Sometimes, you will have to let your friend play first. You can take a turn afterwards.

• I noticed that you are doing really good sharing with your friends. First, you shared your toys. Then, you took turns at the game. That’s great! You are going to have much more fun with your friends if you keep sharing and taking turns.

• I noticed that you seemed nervous, but you kept it inside and kept playing with your friends. After a while, you were really enjoying yourself. Did you notice that you took care of your nervous feelings? Once you did that, you really started to enjoy yourself.

• I noticed that you looked confused, but you kept playing and after a while you were less confused. That’s great! you took your time to figure out the game, and in the end, you figured it out!

• I’m goin to teach you some scripts you can use with your friends. Here they are:

  • I have a game that I want to play. Let me tell you how it works.

  • This is how you take turns in this game….. Here are the rules….

  • If we play make-belief, what I want to do is….What do you want to do?

• I noticed that you used your scripts. I think it helped you to use the script, because you got to play with a new friend

Words for preventing and repairing social breakdowns

• Remember to help your friend understand what you want to do…If there’s a problem, you might want to take a time out to talk about sharing, turn-taking, or rules…I will come to help you explain things if you’re not able to do it on your own…”

• I’m going to teach you some things you can say when you’re not sure what your friends are talking about. If you you get confused about what your friends are saying, you could tell them: “Can you explain that over again?” or, you could say: “I missed something. I think you need to explain that to me another way.”

• I’m going to teach you what to do if you get too mad or too scared. You could say: I’m getting really mad, I need a time-out. Or, you could say: “I’m too frustrated right now, I’ll come back later.” You can check in with me, and then we’ll see what to do so that you can start playing with your friends again.

• I’m going to teach you what to do when you get mad at your friends. It’s called having a breakdown or getting upset. A breakdown happens when friends don’t share, when they don’t take turns, or when they don’t explain to you what they want you to do. If you get mad at your friend, find out if it’s because they forgot to share, take turns, or explain to you what they want you to do.

• I’m going to teach you what to do when you get mad at your friends. Sometimes, your friends will say unkind words to you. It’s never OK to say unkind words, but your friends sometimes will get mad and will say mean things. Or, they might want to tease you. Teasing does not feel very good. It might make you feel embarrassed, ashamed, or just mad. If your friends make you feel those feelings, you’ll have to tell them. You might not want to play with them that day. But, you could try again tomorrow. Try letting them know that they made you feel angry, embarrassed, or ashamed. Then, see if they can be good friends again afterwards.

• I’m going to tell your friends to use a script if you forget to share and take turns. That way, you’ll know if you made a mistake and you can fix it before they get frustrated with you

• I’m going to tell your friends to explain things to you another way if you are not sure what to do. They will be less frustrated if you understand what you’re supposed to do when you play with them.

when do i Consult with professionals?

The suggestions outlined above are commonly used by professionals who work with children. They are useful to most and perhaps all children who go to school. However, they do not constitute behavioral or educational advice for your child. Only you and your child’s health care providers, behavioral health providers, educators, and educational therapists will know if the goals, objectives, and strategies suggested in this Content Page are appropriate for your child. Professionals who work with your child might suggest very different goals, objectives, and strategies from the ones listed here.

Adults who are unsure about how to teach their child social skills should consider consulting with professionals. Sometimes, you will need professional assistance because of your child’s special learning needs. Sometimes, the peers who interact with your child will need assistance socializing with your child. Teaching social skills is important not only for children who are young, and not only for children who may have a disability. All children need instruction in social skills.

Professionals can share strategies and tips to help your socialize more successfully. They can develop your child’s communication skills, help your child manage intense emotions, or teach your child’s peers how to socialize with your child. Professionals who can help include a speech pathologist, a child therapist, a child psychologist. Professionals at school can sometimes be especially helpful. These include guidance counselor or a general or special education teacher. Parenting courses can be very useful too.

Finally, don’t be hesitant to just focus on basic Content Pages! Building a positive relationship with your child, teaching your child good sleeping and eating habits, getting some control over screen time, and teaching your child to follow a schedule are all excellent precursor skills to socializing better. The more consistently your child can participate in daily routines at home, the higher the chances that they will learn to do the same when they are outside the home.

If you are ready, click on the link below to learn about teaching homework skills.

Copyright Division of Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics/ Tufts Children’s Hospital 2020