樱桃视频

Friendships, acceptance, popularity, and party invites may be indicators that a teenager has a successful social life, but they only reveal part of the picture. When it comes to evaluating and supporting a teen驶s social skills, you need to take a holistic view.

True, social skills facilitate getting along with others and building and maintaining friendships. They’re just as much about having the ability to communicate thoughts and emotions, resolve conflicts, express empathy, and cope with challenges and setbacks. Friendships and popularity may come to some kids with strong social skills, but that doesn’t mean kids who are quiet, shy, or homebodies aren鈥檛 just as — or even more — skilled socially.

Social skills help kids with a far wider universe of tasks and goals than making friends and being liked. Kids with strong social skills are better equipped to succeed academically and in the workplace. Social skills also help kids handle stress and adapt to change — something that驶s a big part of the high school years.

Some kids want to be leaders, running for the school council or joining clubs and activities that call for stepping up in a public or active way, while others would rather hang back and participate out of the spotlight. Either way, you want your teen to gain the skills they驶ll need in college and work. Social skills are the stepping stones to that goal. Kids with strong social skills are better at initiating action, making or influencing decisions, inspiring others, and bringing about change. Communication, collaboration, handling criticism — all the social skills your teen has been developing from preschool to now — will come in handy as your teen builds and refines their social skills.

Understanding social skills in high school

It’s easy to think that excelling in high school is all about getting good grades, acing exams, and preparing to get into college or find a job. But while academic achievement may be the marker by which we judge high school success, it驶s by no means the only factor that determines how well we do in life. In fact, research shows that social skills are equally important — if not more important — for your teen驶s future success.

A critical social skill for teens is learning to say no, the bedrock of standing up to peer pressure. This is a primary focus of many school-based , which teach kids how to say no in ways their friends can hear without feeling scared or guilty.

Two more key focus areas of teen SEL programs are empathy and acceptance. Empathy helps teens see things from other people鈥檚 perspectives. Acceptance helps teens understand different points of view and get along with other teens whose backgrounds are very different from their own.

樱桃视频 and supporting teen development

For parents, supporting teens驶 social development can be a confusing and conflicting process. You want them to be liked and included by other students, but do you let them go to that party that you fear might not be supervised? Listening is the key here. When your teen wants to do something, ask why and give serious consideration to the answer, it may convince you.

鈥淩ather than anticipating the worst, parents should understand that this is a time of growth and exploration for teens, which means mistakes and risky behavior can happen, says , a Chicago-based psychologist and author of multiple books for parents, including . 鈥淭he more open, communicative, and involved parents are in their teen鈥檚 life, the more likely teens are to make choices that align with their parents驶 values.鈥�

Be ready for lots of compromise. Flexibility is key in these years of rapid change. You may feel like you驶re making and modifying rules every minute. But hearing what your teen has to say and making decisions situation by situation shows them that you trust their decision-making capability and sense of responsibility. Teens who feel trusted and respected by adults tend to want to live up to the expectations and maintain that trust and respect.

鈥淚 tell parents to step back and avoid micromanaging and judging their kids; instead accept them the way they are and acknowledge their strengths,鈥� Duffy says. 鈥淏y showing your teen that you respect their boundaries and abilities, you’re saying, 驶I know you have the power to take charge of your world,’ which fosters competence and resilience.鈥�

Social skills training for teens

For kids in ninth through twelfth grades, the concepts and tools involved in social skills education start to broaden and have wider applications. Teens can learn to be assertive and confident rather than aggressive, standing up for themselves or expressing opinions without putting down or insulting others.

As you may have noticed, high schoolers tend to be very opinionated. Sometimes this is a good thing, part of the process of getting to know themselves and exploring their own values. But sometimes the insistence on being right gets in the way of connecting with others and teens need guidance on how to articulate their thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs without alienating others.

Unfortunately, there is less room for organized social-emotional learning within the traditional high school structure, where kids go from class to class with a multi-period schedule of math, social studies, and other subjects. Many teachers incorporate these ideas in their classes, however, promoting empathy, communication, persistence, and problem-solving within their classes.

Some high school classes offer prime opportunities for social skills training, particularly electives and after-school activities like art, drama, and music. Encourage your child to take a drama class, join the choir, or take a ceramics class, all of which call for extensive cooperation and collaboration.

Areas where parents can help teens with social skills

It isn驶t always easy for teens to express caring or concern for others, particularly in social environments where 鈥減laying it cool鈥� is prized. Help your child understand that being supportive, encouraging, and helpful shows strength, not weakness. Explain to your teen how the reverse is also true — that being indifferent, insensitive, or dismissive pushes other kids away and sets up barriers to friendship.

Learning to ask for what you want directly and assertively is something we all struggle with, and you can give your high schooler a good head start by working on this now. They can practice this with you, friends, family, and teachers, pointing out the difference between being clear and firm without seeming demanding or whiny.

Particularly tricky is the issue of manipulation, a classic teen strategy for getting what they want in an indirect way. Be vigilant for when your teen is being manipulative and call it out. If this is a frequent issue, you may need to make it clear that you’re much more likely to say yes to requests your teen makes directly and openly, while manipulative or secretive strategies are likely to backfire.

A social skill that驶s often overlooked, but particularly important for teens, is being flexible and adaptive. High schoolers are thrown into many situations where stubbornness and rigidity put them at a disadvantage. Flexibility, on the other hand, will go far in helping them get along with others and fit into situations and environments that can shift very quickly. If you notice your teen being inflexible or resistant to trying something new, talk to them about the importance of being open to new ideas and experiences. It’s only by experimenting and rising to the occasion when they驶re called on to try something new that teens can grow, mature, and gain experience.

Effective social skills activities for teens

Teens need opportunities to practice their social skills outside of the classroom. As a parent you don驶t have as much power as you once did to enroll your child in this or that program, Duffy says, but you can encourage your child to join some sort of outside activity, or even make it mandatory.

鈥淢ake it part of the family culture that everyone does something besides work and school,鈥� Duffy suggests.

Joining a sports team is a time-honored way for teens to build comradery, channel competitiveness, and get comfortable with the give and take of supporting others. 鈥淭here is an awful lot you can learn in sports that you will use the rest of your life,鈥� Duffy says. 鈥淵ou learn to play on a team. You learn to handle challenges and cope with adversity. And you learn to be gracious both when you win and when you lose.鈥�

If your teen excels as an athlete, then team sports will cement their self-confidence, which can extend to better self-esteem in other situations. But kids who are beginners or simply middling players can still build confidence, especially if they keep their focus on improving their own skills rather than competing with others. Talk to your teen about the concept of personal best and how athletes use it to measure individual progress. You can help your teen by praising them for taking seconds off a mile or making more goals than they did in the last game rather than for wins.

If your child isn驶t a 鈥渏oiner,鈥� look for activities that take place one-on-one or integrate kids with a few kids united by a shared interest. Examples include project-based science programs and 鈥渞ock鈥� camps in which kids form a band. Shy kids or those who prefer adult company do well in settings where they can take on their own tasks within a group, such as volunteering at a hospital or assisting at a pet shelter or wildlife center. See our ultimate list of extracurricular activities for inspiration.

Fostering social skills in the high school years

鈥淚 find that the kids who struggle most socially are forever trying to act like the cool kid or the kid who’s most popular or the loudest, and that’s not every kid,鈥� Duffy says. 鈥淵our kid has an organic, real voice and a set of interests that they can find if you allow them the space to figure that out and listen to themselves and hear your feedback.鈥�

Speaking of feedback, Duffy says, there needs to be lots of that. Notice and acknowledge whenever your teen does something nice for another person, listens well, solves a problem independently, or takes the risk of expressing sensitive feelings.

鈥淚f you驶ve made yourself available for support and created an environment in which your teen knows you approve of and respect them, you驶ve got much more room to intervene and set a rule or boundary when you need to,鈥� he says.

Social skills activities for teens

In social skills training, role-playing is one of the main ways teachers actively instruct kids in social skills. While teens have largely outgrown formal role playing (which is too easily mocked) they actually role play a lot in an informal way with friends and peer groups. If your high schooler wants to ask someone out on a date, for example, they might talk to friends about it and toss around ideas on what to say. Or if your child is interested in someone and wants to know them better, they might ask friends for suggestions about where and how to approach the person.

Think about scenes in TV shows and movies in which a character who wants to get to know someone practices in the mirror, trying out different lines. Kids still do a version of this, practicing expressions, tone of voice, body language, as well as words either with friends or just on their own.

At home, TV shows and movies are your friends when it comes to teaching social skills to teens, particularly those that center on friendships and relationships. 鈥淎 lot of teenage kids are going back to old shows like Friends and The Office or watching similar modern sitcoms, and I encourage parents to watch with them and make really judicious use of the pause button,鈥� Duffy says.

“So if there’s a scene going on and there’s emotional stuff at play, you just pause it and say, 驶Ok, what do you think is going on with Chandler right now, how do you think he’s feeling about this?’ It can be a playful, non-threatening way to talk about empathy and relationship dynamics.鈥�

High school classes often call for group interactions and peer feedback and this can be a challenge, forcing kids to choose between 鈥渕aking nice鈥� and saying what they think. One technique experts teach teens for handling these kinds of situations is what psychologists call a 鈥渃omplement sandwich,鈥� which offers a way to give constructive feedback in a positive way that hopefully avoids hurt feelings. As the name suggests, a feedback sandwich consists of a constructive criticism sandwiched between two positive statements. Teaching teens this strategy helps them in situations where a teacher asks one student to comment on the idea, thesis, or project of another. For example, “I liked how you made that argument. You could strengthen it with more examples. But you made your main points very convincingly.”

Your teen can also learn to use variations on the feedback sandwich when a friend asks for their opinion about an outfit, boyfriend or girlfriend, or something equally touchy and they don驶t know how to give a negative answer kindly.

Promoting healthy relationships for teens

You hear time and again from teachers, school officials, experts, and fellow parents that keeping the lines of communication open is absolutely essential if you’re going to provide effective guidance during the high school years. But how can you do that when your teen is in and out the door in less than an hour, earbuds in, barely long enough to grab a jacket and make a sandwich? In the early high school years, at least you may have time in the car, which is when many parents find they have the best talks with their teens. But once teens are driving or taking transit on their own, it驶s far harder to find a quiet moment to talk.

You may not want to hear this, but if this describes your home life, then texting is your friend.

鈥淢any parents lament the texting culture, saying their kids don鈥檛 talk to them anymore, but in my opinion they’re missing the bigger picture,鈥� Duffy says. 鈥淭exting with your kids can be a very, very good thing if you allow it to be; it驶s an excellent way to make a connection, touch base for a moment, or make a point, without helicoptering. It provides a really great boundary between older kids and parents, allowing a wider berth of freedom, trust, and connection. Used sparingly, it makes us parents less annoying.鈥� When he gets texts from his son, Duffy says, no matter how short or cryptic, he realizes his son is thinking about him, and that鈥檚 enough.

Texting can even be a good substitute when dealing with more complex issues that might once have required a conversation, he says. 鈥淚 find that kids communicate more with their parents as a direct result of texting. Even the surliest of teens is likely to share way more of their life with their parents than they would otherwise.鈥� So keep those emojis coming.

The impact of social skills in high school and beyond

There驶s a strong body of research documenting the many long-term benefits that good social skills convey for high schoolers. For instance, one recently found that when middle and high school students completed a program of social skills training they experienced significant improvements in emotional intelligence (EI) and engaged in fewer antisocial and criminal behaviors.

In a 2024 study, found that students who participated in SEL programs did better in school, both academically and socially. They had better attendance, higher grades, and were more engaged in learning. They also had better attitudes, higher self-esteem, rated higher in positive attributes like perseverance and optimism. Furthermore, the report confirmed that students who participate in SEL programs also feel better in school, reporting less anxiety, stress, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Students also felt more accepted and included and had better relationships with peers, teachers, and other adults.

Going beyond previous studies to look at issues particularly related to high school students, the Yale researchers found that not only did SEL-trained teens have more pro-social behaviors, like being a good friend, but they were better citizens and community members as well. Kids with strong social and emotional skills were more community-minded, had a better grasp of current events, social justice, and civic processes, and had stronger moral and ethical reasoning.

Practical guidance for parents

The high school years can be some of the most challenging for parents. It’s a time when you desperately want to protect your teen from painful experiences while having very little ability to do so. The good news, though, is that you don驶t have to do it alone. Teachers and coaches are your allies, and most high schools now have some efforts or programs to support mental health and wellness.

Those that don驶t should, says Duffy. 鈥淎t the least, we should make sure our kids know school counselors, social workers, and therapists well enough to reach out to a known professional when they feel as if they may need help getting through a difficult day, or social situation, or class.鈥�

We can make other kinds of support available, too, from therapists and support groups to stress-reducing activities like mindfulness and meditation apps. 鈥淜ids should know from early ages a few ways to manage anxiety and depression, attention issues, and hopelessness,鈥� says Duffy. 鈥淭hey should have a bead on their emotional strengths every bit as much as, if not more so, than their relative weaknesses.鈥�

Getting them help from a professional shows them that you care and provides them with a resource to overcome mental and behavioral health challenges. 鈥淭hey can learn the degree to which they are both competent and resilient,鈥� Duffy says.

Social skills help teens build and maintain healthy relationships and interact with others in ways that build connections and bonds and don驶t distance or alienate themselves. In other words, they are all those skills that make teenagers easy to get along with and pleasant to be around.

Social skills, like effective communication, empathy, acceptance, flexibility, cooperation, and conflict resolution, help teens solve problems, overcome hurdles, and become self-confident adults. Research shows that teens with strong social skills go on to do better in their academic, work, and personal lives, and are more likely to develop healthy, positive relationships and set and achieve goals. Parents, teachers, and coaches can all be part of the picture of social skills training, providing support, guidance, and opportunities for teens to develop and practice these key skills.