Your Child's Social Competence Is Way More Important Than Their Academic Performance

Oct 29, 2018 by apost team

A parent of a young child is faced with many overwhelming concerns. One of the highest on the list is the worry that the child may or may not develop satisfactory gains and social skills needed in even the youngest age of academia.

Parents question if their tots are reading, counting, and even calculating well enough for their age, often comparing with others. “Can my child count as high as his peers?” “Can he read as many words from the 100 high-frequency word list as his best friend?” “How far has she come in quantum physics?”

Of course, the last one is an exaggeration; however, parents are constantly fretting over the effect early education is having on their young ones, whether or not it is creating enough of a solid foundation of academic skills to launch them through their academic lifetime.

Most of these parents would be very surprised to learn how much more important the child’s social skills are over academic, particularly when it comes to predicting outcomes well into adulthood.

One 2015 study on early functioning in children proved that even with controlled demographics of a child’s family and controlled academic ability early in life, social skills that were observed in a kindergartener had the highest correlation with the person at 25 years of age, demonstrating a large amount of staying power.

apost.com

Kindergarteners who showed high social competences are proven most likely to follow a successful path including graduation from high school and college, having a career, and staying out of jail, regardless of more commonly worried about factors such as the parents’ careers and finances, or how advanced the child is at reading.

Parents often feel pressure to reduce their child’s playtime in favor of instruction of the “hard skills” and academics; however, the “soft skills,” many of which are actually developed during play time, are now shown to be higher predictors of the child’s success long-term.

There are many ways to encourage your child to have positive and lasting social interactions, developing their “soft skills” for success. Here are a few simple yet important competencies that are crucial for fostering in a young child.

When children play with others, they are actually engaging in an activity that will continue to be a catalyst throughout their early years of development. During playtime, kids are actually learning about negotiation, turn-taking, sharing, experimenting, problem-solving, and many more crucial competencies.

Simply setting “free play time” aside for your child and his or her peers is a fundamental way to build and develop these skills. Structure and instruction is so important for a child when it comes to music lessons and sports practice, but having unstructured play dates – supervised, but not too instructed – where children can engage amongst themselves, on their own terms.

Parents are protective, no matter the scenario. This is why we are tempted to swoop in and rescue our children at any small dispute because as their protectors we simply wish do right any wrong. When an argument arises, we often react by confiscating the object of it, setting a time-out or a timer, or separating children to play in opposite areas.

The reason we do this, above our aim to protect, is simply because we just know what to do. We have much practice problem-solving from our adult years, and especially from parenting, that we know how to problem-solve and simply set the solving in motion.

Many scenarios with children require this for all of our survival; however, it is equally important for children to gain some practice problem-solving as well.

Instead of removing the problem for a child, invite the young one to be included in the process of solving it. The next time your child encounters a problem, begin by asking the child to describe the problem and begin brainstorming solutions together.

As the parent, you would think of yourself as an active, key player, but as support only. Rather than solving the problem, ask your child questions that lead to solutions.

Allow the child to try out some of the solutions, letting him or her take the reins. This type of teaching also allows the child to experience failing and trying again. Evaluating their experiences and re-thinking them is yet another critically important “soft skill” that the child can learn from this situation.

Encourage them as they make mistakes, so they know that mistakes are just as important to helping us learn and moving forward.

A child who can perceive the emotions of others will find getting along with those around them to be much simpler. When a parent calls attention to emotional cues, this helps the child understand how feelings are displayed. Many parents use different phrases to encourage their children to recognize emotions.

A few common ones are, “I don’t think your sister is having fun, by looking at her face,” or, “Your smile was so bright when you won the game, you looked very excited!” In addition, we can use stories to point out emotions of the characters, such as asking a child how a character in the story felt at a certain plot point.

Having a conversation with your child about observed emotion while reading a story is a great way to learn without the child being caught up in any emotions involving him or herself. In this way, they have a more comfortable viewpoint, allowing them to be more thoughtful and then apply these new understandings in their own life.

As a side note, many researchers have shown that screen time can take away from a child’s emotion reading ability. Face to face interaction with other humans will develop their ability to read the faces and emotions of those around them, while screens can serve to hinder it.

Recognizing the needs of others can be a tough skill to teach a child, but simply taking notice and paying compliments are the first steps. These methods of positive reinforcement encourage children to continue the positive behavior.

In particular, children respond well when opportunities are given to help, such as carrying in groceries or readying a fresh diaper for an infant sibling, and then generous gratitude is shown afterward.

Another way to encourage this is to display gratitude to any outside helpers. Pointedly and positively say thank you to a grocery bagger or a police officer, just for doing their helpful jobs. Doing this in front of a child works to instill value in helping and service.

Yes, this one can be even more difficult to teach a child; especially, as the area of the brain that controls executive functions such as impulse control isn’t even fully developed until early adulthood.

There are rapid spurts of development of this area, the prefrontal cortex, that happen in a child’s early years though, which is why all children need practice growing impulse control from an early age.

There are examples of research, and research games, that instill a child’s ability to delay gratification patiently, while they seem to have fun – one great example is the marshmallow study.

Other games are Simon Says and Red Light/Green Light, which actually teach children to control an impulse to move. Playing pretend with a child can also assist with impulse control skills, as the child learns to plan their actions and make their own rules that must be followed.

While there is endless value in the academic skills which children are being taught, our modern society teaches us that they need to learn more of them, and at younger ages. Endlessly teaching them “hard skills” will eventually take away time to foster “soft skills,” and the reality stands that each type is just as important as the other.

Through play and social interaction, engaging with peers and families, and simply being given the opportunity to observe their surroundings, children will obtain skills that will serve them at a higher level, and for longer into their lives.

Do you agree? Which skills do you think are more important - social or academic? Send this article to other parents to see what they think about it!