Interactive Skills

By learning to use gestures and words, they will start to communicate and interact with others in more complex ways.

Children develop interactive skills from the moment they are born. They quickly start bonding with their parents and siblings by making eye contact and interacting with different pitches and tones of voice.

As they grow and develop, so do their interactive and social skills. By learning to use gestures and words, they will start to communicate and interact with others in more complex ways.

Children learn interpersonal and social skills based on their experiences – by what worked in the past. Young babies may scream and cry to let their parents know they are hungry. As a child gets older, screaming for food becomes less and less acceptable – once some basic language has been learned it becomes more appropriate to ask for food. With time, practice and encouragement, children will learn that communicating using words and sentences, including the word ‘please,’ to ask for food maybe the best way to get what they want.

At this age, 5-year-old’s can manage feelings and social situations with greater independence. They will come up with ways to calm down on their own, such as going to another room or negotiating and compromising to resolve a conflict. They also have improved skills for forming and maintaining friendships with adults and other children. Being accepted by “the group” is becoming more and more important to them. Activities that can help in your 5 year old’s Interactive skill development:

• Expose your child to effective problem solving techniques. When a conflict occurs between children, encourage your child to express his feelings to the other and offer solutions for resolving the conflict.
• Ask your child and his friend to put together a puppet show with you as the audience. They can come up with the story and act it out together.
• Plan a trip to the beach and play games together using the sand and the water from the sea. You can dig a hole or build a large sandcastle together.
• Draw and colour together. You can take turns in creating drawings and colouring each other’s work.