SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN
Emotional and social development is the child’s ability to know the feelings of other people, being able to control them as well as behaviours and building relationships with the adults. Treating children in a certain way helps them know who they are. A good relationship filled with love offer young children more sense of safety, confidence, and comfort. The following are activities that are crucial in supporting children’s social and emotional development.
Play games
Make time for games. Games help the child learn how to take turns. This game could be a matter of rolling a ball back and forth. A ball and a flat surface are enough to make this happen.
2) Taking the child to town
The child will be able to interact fully with people of all ages when they are grown up
Go to restaurants, museums, stores and do every stuff that is related to interacting with people. Let the child practice by themselves if they want to.
3) Make art
Art making will enable the child to have an outlet for emotional expression.
Give the child different tools and materials, let him experiment. Encourage the child to create and not wait for the end product.
4) Role play
Role play will strengthen the child’s language skills as well as their vocabulary and teach the value of teamwork since it will have to involve both verbal and non-verbal communication.
Place a trunk of dress-up clothes or a box, pick hand puppets and give a variety of props to challenge your child to have some imaginations during the role-play.
Here, you will need a box, hand puppets and a trunk of dress-up clothes.
5) Reading of faces and interpretation of emotions
This face reading will help a child to always be ready for what others are about to do after interpreting the facial expressions.
Take turns to act out certain emotions then let the child make some guesses on what they can see. This interpretation can also be caused by replacing the written word of feelings with drawings on a piece of paper.
You will require a book and a pen.
By doing practice on the activities listed above, a child will make substantial social and emotional development and will thus be able to co-relate well with other people, appreciate other people at all times, the child will be keen not to hurt other people. The child will furthermore know how to deal with different feelings as well as knowing how to handle themselves in situations where others express different emotions. The virtue of being able to work in a team will also get in the child who is very important in their life. Being able to know how to take turns in any activity is also crucial as discussed. Parents and teachers should, therefore, be keen to take time and involve the children in these activities. These activities could be possible by setting up some time for these activities.
