Social interaction skills

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Social skills

Having good social skills when you are growing up is really important. They will help you with making friends, handling conflict and building your self-confidence. During your teenage years you are more likely to be sensitive of what other people think of you and it can result in shyness or make it look like you are overreacting to different situations.

Having strong social skills is really important for young people so that they can build effective relationships in all aspects of their life. As you grow up your relationship with your parents will change and the people in your life will change. Having good social skills will make sure that you are able to keep your relationships strong and healthy.

The most important social skills for teens and young people are:

  • Relationship-building: This allows teens to establish and nurture bonds with other people, especially their peers.
  • Social awareness: This is sensitivity to people’s emotions and an ability to be considerate of others people’s circumstances.
  • Decision-making: This requires critical thinking and problem-solving ability to make sound decisions based on particular situations.
  • Active listening: This is needed for engaging and sustaining conversations. But unlike mere hearing, it requires attentiveness, comprehension, and empathy.
  • Self-management: This helps teens control, regulate, and direct their emotions when interacting with people.
  • Stress reduction: This emphasizes composure, presence of mind, and self-belief which helps teens avoid overreacting or underreacting in their conversations.

Social disorders

There are a number of disorders that can affect your ability to develop social skills, for example autism. At this age you will be more able to see signs of autism than at younger ages. These signs include:

  • Not understanding what other people are thinking or feeling
  • Unusual speech, such as repeating phrases and talking “at” others rather than “to” people
  • Preferring to keep to a set daily routine and getting upset if it changes
  • Being overly interested in very specific subjects or activities
  • Getting very upset when you ask them to do something
  • Finding it hard to make friends or preferring to be on their own
  • Taking things very literally and not understanding common terms or phrases, such as “break a leg”
  • Finding it very difficult to talk about how they feel

The signs of autism are different between boys and girls. Autistic girls may:

  • Hide some of the typical signs of autism by copying how other children act and play
  • Back away from social situations that they find difficult
  • Look like they are coping better in social situations
  • Show fewer repetitive actions or behaviours

If you think that your child might be autistic or have any other social or learning disorders you can speak to:

  • Your GP
  • A health visitor
  • Special Educational Needs (SENCO) staff

You can find out how to get diagnosed here: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/autism/getting-diagnosed/how-to-get-diagnosed/

Staying safe online

Staying safe online is really important for your personal security. The digital world is massive and it is guaranteed that you will spend a lot of time on the internet. The National Cyber Security Centre gives the following advice for staying secure online:

  • Protect your email by using a strong and separate password:  cyber criminals can use your email to access many of your personal accounts, leaving you vulnerable to identity theft.
  • Install the latest software and app updates: software and app updates contain vital security updates to help protect your devices from cyber criminals.
  • Turn on 2-step verification (2SV)
  • Backing up your data: safeguard your most important data, such as your photos and key documents, by backing them up to an external hard drive or a cloud-based storage system.
  • Three random words: use three random words to create a password that's difficult to crack. 

When you spend a lot of time online it is likely that you will encounter explicit or inappropriate content, for example pornographic content. This content may upset you and there is lots of help available through the NSPCC (https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/inappropriate-explicit-content/#resources)

If you think you may be being groomed or are speaking to someone online that you shouldn’t be go to the police or to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection service (CEOP Safety Centre).

Understanding how to stay safe online is important. You may find emails or messages from people that you do not know. If you think a message or email looks suspicious, for example it is promising you something you haven’t asked for, or the email address is unfamiliar, you could be being attacked for your personal information. You should ignore and delete these messages and report the account that got in touch with you. You can find more information about digital attacks here: How to Spot Email Phishing with these 7 Tips (cofense.com).

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Social interaction skills

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