Social Skills

How to teach your child to buckle up and enjoy the thrill of life’s rollercoaster ride!The greatest challenge for parents in our world today is to raise children who are ‘non-stick’ or as Andrew Fuller describes in his bookFrom Surviving to Thriving, ‘teflon coated’.Non-stick children are those who can cope with the ‘rough and tumble’ of home, school and Read more

Telling stories is not always easy.To tell a story you need to:tell who the story is about, where and when it happened; put the story in the right order - beginning, middle, end; give details about what happened first, next, at the end; suggest why the events happened; tell how the characters felt and why (more difficult for young children); use Read more

Adequate social language skills are essential for academic, social and vocational success.Since the 1980’s, parents and professionals alike have become increasingly aware that effective non-verbal and verbal skills such as starting, maintaining and ending a conversation, expressing emotions, dealing with conflict or understanding humour are not always easy tasks for children with pragmatic Read more

Play helps children’s social skills, movement, thinking and language. It also helps children grow and be healthy.FIND any opportunity to play with your child throughout the day.LOOK at what your child is interested in and join them. Sometimes give them choices to help them play.WAIT for your child to lead the play and respond. You Read more

The following strategies may help support your child’s interaction with other children.• Increase the time your child spends playing with someone else. By observing your child carefully you will see times he or she is able to accept someone sitting next to him or her. This is the beginning of joint attention in an activity• When you are sitting next to your child, you can help him Read more

You decide to give your child’s ‘therapy’ a miss today and take your family to the beach instead. You feel a little guilty but you also feel you and your family need a break.Everyone is tired of working on all those goals – to increase movement skills, refine hand skills, improve muscle strength and endurance, increase tactile awareness, learn concepts such as big/little, full/empty Read more