Posted by Ian Kelly and Heather Smith

In our last post, we focused on independent work skills and provided guidance as to how families can support the development of those skills. In this post, we continue to focus on skills identified by the ROSP and turn our attention to working well in groups.

The ability to work well in a group is a life skill that takes time for children to master but is one that will take them beyond the walls of the classroom.  As with learning any new skill, “failure” is an important part of this process.  Children have to take social risks in order to learn from their mistakes.  No matter how well we try to prepare our children, there are things that they have to learn for themselves.  Navigating social relationships and working with others towards a common goal is simply one of those things.

Works well in a group

1. Embedded Skills

   • Social negotiation:  Social negotiation is the ability to try to understand another person’s perspective and compromise, when appropriate.

   • Self-regulation: Children learn how to regulate and manage their emotions by learning strategies to deal with them.

2. Strategies

   • Social negotiation: The art of negotiation is a skill that we want all children to develop.  Depending on whether or not your child has siblings, you are likely observing social negotiations every day at home (and maybe sometimes you act as the arbitrator)!  When your child is at school working collaboratively in a group, she is learning how to work with others towards a common goal and work through conflicts along the way.  In school, we try to teach children about the roles they can play in the process by assigning them “roles” to perform within a group.  For example, we might tell students that one student is responsible for keeping the group on task while another might be the “peacekeeper” etc.  One of the reasons that young children take time to learn these skills is due to their cognitive development.  According to Piaget, children remain in an egocentric (or preoperational) stage of development until about age 7 (one in which they focus on themselves and have difficulty taking on someone else’s perspective).  This doesn’t mean that they are incapable of understanding how another person feels but does mean that they need a good deal of coaching from caring adults who can ask good questions and help them try to identify another person’s perspective.  Asking questions such as: “How do you think your friend feels about this?”  or “How would you feel if you were in this situation?” can help.  If they are playing with another peer and encounter conflict, you might try to help them find a “common ground” where both parties can make a compromise.  You can also try to help your child with this by encouraging him/her to take turns with a peer (or sibling) or offer a peer help whenever possible

   • Self-regulation: It hurts to see our children upset.  Our instincts drive us to make the situation better for our children and, after all, we want them to be happy!  But dealing with frustration is part of growing up.  Instead of removing your child from an undesirable situation, coach them through it.  If your child is upset because everyone in her group is using the crayon she needs (we’re sure you’ve never had to deal with that one before), ask her: “How are you feeling about that and what can you do about it?”  Children could try a number of strategies in this situation: try taking a deep breath, ask a friend when they will done with the crayon, move on to something else that she can accomplish, etc.