Social Skills

Class overview

Social Skills are the skills people use to talk, play, and work together. These are the skills that help people get along with each other. You use these skills in everyday life, sometimes even automatically without even thinking.  Your tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions are all things people use to interact with you, and it's just as important for you to recognize those same things in other people in order to interact effectively with them. 

In this class, you will not only learn about yourself and your own ways of communicating your needs to others, but you will also learn the ways that other people might communicate their needs to you, often in non-verbal ways.  You will also explore those "pet peeves" that seem to "trigger" you every time you see them, develop awareness of your own body language when you are becoming escalated, and you will experiment with using lots of different strategies to try when you are feeling escalated or low.  You will rate the effectiveness of those strategies that you've tried, to determine which ones work best for certain situations. 

In addition, we will also work on time management, organization, breaking down bigger projects into manageable chunks, and making plans to complete unfinished assignments.