Social Skills

What are Social Skills?

Social skills are the ways people talk, play, and work together that help us understand each other and get along better. There are lots of different social skills you use everyday, often without even thinking about them.

Whenever we work or play, we put together words, tone, body position, facial expressions, and actions to let each other know what we want or how we are feeling. Social skills are the ways we put those words, body clues, and actions together. When we all use good social skills, it helps us work and play together in a more peaceful, considerate way.

When you smile to show you are welcoming, when you filter your words or hold back nasty comments, when you look at someone’s body position to figure out how they are feeling, when you pause yourself and wait for your turn — these are all ways of using social skills. Each time you stop and think about how what you are doing or saying will affect someone else, you are using social skills.