Socialization

Lately I've been talking about self-esteem and how to instill it in children. I'm going to turn now to socialization. Socialization isn't something that I think parents think is an aspect of life that needs to be taught, yet it is. We teach children socialization skills when we have play dates, teach them how to be kind to others, to share, to say please and thank you and how to behave in public. Just like there are different types of competence levels that a child has to be taught and reach with self-esteem there are different kinds of competence that come with teach your children socialization.

Social competence is an individuals ability to initiate and maintain satisfying reciprocal relationships with friends. A socially competent person is one who can use environmental and personal resources to achieve  positive outcomes. Socially competent children participate in satisfying interactions and activities with adults and friends and through these interactions further improve individual social competence. When developing social competence children develop skills and character during the first five years of life that support or detract from social competence. For example, if a parent always speaks for their child(ren) and doesn't ever allow them to answer any question that's directed at them this detracts from social competence and doesn't teach it at all. How we interact with friends is a signal of success in life and school. Where social competence is a way to foresee success in life and school all children should be supported in achieving it. It's achieved by parents teaching it and a component of socialization because  in order to make friends people need competence in their ability to socialize and their knowledge of how to socialize correctly with others.