5 Strategies for building relationship skills in Kids

Over the past month or so, we’ve been focusing on the individual competencies within the CASEL social-emotional learning framework. So far, we’ve talked in depth about self-awareness, self-management and social awareness. Today, we will dive into the next competency – relationship skills.

There’s certainly no denying the fact that our kids’ relationship and communication skills took a hit because of the pandemic. Think about it – kids were isolated from their peers, communicating primarily with the people they live with or via a screen, missing out on critical conflict resolution opportunities (i.e. recess, playdates, etc.). It’s no wonder so many teachers consider the lack of relationship and communication skills to be one of their biggest battles now that in-person school has resumed.

To further illustrate this point, let me tell a personal story. Toward the end of the initial COVID lockdown, my daughter and I were invited over to her best friend’s house for a “porch playdate.” The girls (1st graders at the time) were going to play together on the porch while the moms chatted. This was the first time the girls were going to be together in person in several months. They were both so excited!

That morning, we walked over to their house. Her best friend had pulled out a wide variety of toys they could play with. They sat down on the ground, and her mom and I got to chatting. After several minutes, I realized that neither of the girls were talking to one another. They were both quietly playing with the flip sequins on my daughter’s backpack. I made a joke about how they were allowed to talk to one another and returned to chatting with her mom.

A few more minutes passed, and suddenly her dad popped his head out the front door. He seemed surprised to find us on the porch. He said it seemed so quiet outside, he thought we had gone for a walk. I laughed and said that I had just made a similar comment.

As time went on, the girls seemed to warm up and began to play. As my daughter and I were walking home, I asked her why she seemed so hesitant to talk and play with her best friend, but she didn’t really have an answer.

For the rest of the day, I kept thinking about the playdate, and it finally hit me! The girls had (in a sense) forgotten how to communicate! They had spent so many months in isolation, with just their parents and siblings, they were unsure of how to go about resuming “normal” play.

While it took me awhile to come to this conclusion, it’s since become clear that this is a widespread problem. As I travel to schools all over the country, I’ve had teacher after teacher verbalize this very same issue…even 2 years into the pandemic!

Our kids spent a long time being isolated from their peers and missing out on learning and practicing some pretty critical communication skills. It’s really no wonder this has become such a problem. The question becomes…What can we do about it?

Read on for 5 strategies to help our kids rebuild or strengthen their relationship and communication skills.

practice cooperative learning skills.

With students spending so much time doing virtual learning, hundreds of opportunities to build cooperative learning skills were missed. We need to provide those opportunities now. Allow students to work in partners, trios or larger groups as often as possible. Review, model and practice the skills necessary for successful cooperative learning – listening, encouraging, compromising, coming to a consensus, etc. Give kids the time and space to flex those muscles once again, and it will eventually all come back to them.

Teach kids how to communicate their wants and needs.

A huge component of building healthy relationships is having the ability to advocate for yourself when necessary. This is a skill that most kids are not well versed in. We can help them with this, though, by discussing the difference between needs and wants, listing out possible needs and wants and helping them to understand why it’s so important to be able to communicate these to others. Talk about this concept within the context of different types of relationships – friendships, student/teacher, parent/child, etc.

Know the difference between above the line and below the line behaviors.

I don’t remember where I first heard that term, but it has stuck with me for years now. Above the line behaviors are positive and below the line behaviors are negative. Another way to think of it is above the line behaviors are characteristic of a healthy friendship or relationship while below the line behaviors are those reminiscent of an unhealthy relationship. Create an anchor chart of each type of behavior or the traits of a good friend. Read and discuss stories with examples of strong, healthy relationships, as well as ones where bullying or unhealthy relationships are happening. Help students understand that everyone is deserving of healthy relationships and, depending upon age, discuss ways to seek help if they are involved in an unhealthy relationship.

Teach respectful disagreement strategies.

I know, I know…this same strategy was included in the social awareness post. I feel so strongly about this one, though, I’m including it again. You can read about it more here.

Arm kids with conflict resolution strategies.

Conflict is going to happen. We can’t avoid it, but we can provide kids with a wide variety of conflict resolution strategies so they are ready when it happens. Kids will not learn how to solve conflicts through osmosis. We have to explicitly teach the strategies and model, model, model. Then, we have to walk them through the conflict resolution process over and over again until they feel ready to independently tackle the problem. This is not a quick strategy, but it will pay off in the long run when we have kids who can independently resolve their conflicts and not rely on us to solve every little problem they run into. That’s worth it, in my opinion!

What other strategies would you include on this list?