Introduction
According to davidsongifted, “Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) struggle with peer interaction for a number of reasons. A child’s overactivity and impulsivity can sometimes be aversive to other children. Children with ADHD can also be blunt or overly frank with their peers. Further, children with ADHD often have difficulty linking current behaviors to long-term outcomes. Thus, social skills that do not have an immediate payoff (e.g., sharing, cooperating, and taking turns) may not seem worthwhile to them.” In other words, it can be argued children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, due to their overactivity and impulsivity, may often struggle with social skills. The question remains how do you improve children’s social skills with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? This article will provide the reader with tips to improve social skills in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Emotion Education
According to davidsongifted.org, children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder have a tendency to misread social cues. Therefore, children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder can benefit from emotion education. According to http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10570.aspx , “For this type of intervention, children learn to better understand and read others’ emotions as well as their own. While some children learn these behaviors through observation, others need to be explicitly taught how to infer what others are thinking and feeling. You can work on these skills by asking questions like “How do you know if someone is (mad, sad, happy, etc.)? What does their face look like? How do you know when you are feeling sad? What does it feel like in your body?” Therefore, emotion education enables children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to understand what other children and adults are thinking and feeling. In return, this helps them achieve better social skills.
Social Skills Groups
In addition to emotion education to enable children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to achieve better social skills, another way to enable them to achieve better social skills is through social skills groups. According to davidsongifted, “Children with ADHD also generally benefit from more formal social skills training focused on helping them develop strategies for emotion regulation, friendship skills, skills for understanding thoughts and feeling, conversation skills, as well as social problem solving skills. This therapy is often best implemented in the group setting where children have the opportunity to practice newly acquired skills with peers as well as meet other children with similar difficulties.” With that said, children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder can practice these newly learned skills with their fellow peers to better improve their social skills.
Conclusion
Social skills are very important for anyone. However, for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, who struggle to read social cues, social skills training is quite essential. Therefore, emotion education and social skills groups are two essential ways to improve social skills in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.