Social Emotional Skills in School Age Children

Why do you think it is so important for us to “teach” children social emotional skills? These are some of the skills that we know that children need in order to be more successful and to prevent challenging behavior—not only in early care and education settings, but also in future educational settings. While we tend to be very thoughtful and intentional about teaching literacy, cognitive, and other skills, we need to be just as intentional about teaching social emotional skills.


While school-age children may have many friends, they are developing close relationships with one or two best friends whom they like to be with the most. Social relationships become more complex during the school-age years. By choice, children in this stage are spending less time with their parents and more time with peers.  Friendships are becoming more important. The family, however, still plays an important role in supporting the child’s development.

They begin to make social comparisons, defining themselves in terms of the qualities, skills, and attributes they see in others. Personal strengths and weakness are identified as a result of this comparison. A self-concept is formed. School-age children are very sensitive to what others think of them. How they dress, what they wear, and how they do their hair become increasingly important as they try to fit in and be accepted by their peers.

School-age children need a sense of belonging. Their sense of personal and cultural identity is becoming more defined, yet they are still highly vulnerable to each others’ opinions. Peer approval can be more important to them than adult approval. You will need to help school-age children be accepting and respectful of individual differences.

To meet the social needs of school-age children, make sure you:

• Provide opportunities to encourage responsibility-taking, helpful behavior, and meaningful work, such as making cards for a sick child, caring for pets or plants, and preparing or cleaning up meals and snacks
• Provide opportunities to support children’s friendships 
• Arrange planned and spontaneous activities in team sports, group games, interest clubs, board and card games 
• Allow unstructured time during each day to socialize with friends or adults
• Model respect for differences of opinions and honor diversity
• Help children resolve conflicts and solve problems by using their words and talking about the issues

Related training:

The Empowerment of Play for the School-Age Child - 3 hours
Positive Communication with School Age Kids - 1.5 hours
School Age Staff 20 Hour Basic
Understanding Behavior in School Age Children - 3 hours

Click here to see if we have training in your state.