5 Ways To Lifelong Learning Social Skills
Learning social skills takes place your whole life long. You will be learning social skills until you die, and you started learning social skills even before you were cognitively aware of it.
Learning social skills occurs all of the time because the situations you are in change as you develop and mature. Learning social skills occurs in an instructional setting as in interactions where you will try out techniques and discard what does not work to your favor.
Below is a list of the situations and scenarios that took place while you were learning social skills. This list may be helpful to you if you are interested in learning more social skills, or if you have a child you are trying to teach.
1. You begin learning social skills as an infant.
When you need food or to be changes, you cried. You used your limited ability to vocalize to let other people know what you needed. As an infant, people did not require you to make your petition in a strict format, crying worked. So, you cried and were fed or held. This behavior was a form of learning social behavior.
2. As you learned to say words, you most likely were taught please and thank you among the first. As small children, we were taught to say please when we needed something instead of crying.
Often, crying no longer elicited the response we hoped for, so this new please word worked better for our ends. Adults who model please and thank you create an environment where their children will learn to practice the social skill of being polite much quicker.
3. At school, teachers instill in students a sense of order and a respect for allowing everyone to take their turn. Raising you hand to speak was a rudimentary way to inhibit interrupting other people in their sentences. An important social skill is the respect for order and patience.
4. As older children and in the college application process, you learned about phrasing and using appropriate words to elicit positive responses from colleges or groups you hoped to be a part of.
The art of writing a college entrance essay is very similar to the art of small talk or beginning a conversation with an important person you barely know.
5. In the adult world, people who practice social skills get promoted faster and seem to enjoy their interactions more. The simple correlation between good social skills and company promotion makes a strong case for continuing to learn social skills.
Learning social skills never stops because our social environment always changes. Take time today to evaluate your progress with learning social skills.