The following activities can help a person gain peer acceptance, belongingness and increased self-esteem:
Participation
Voluntarily submitting oneself to be involved is one way of being recognized.
Sharing
When you share time and other resources with someone it is a simple way of letting others feel cared for.
Be a friend
Have you tried being a friend to a friend in need? If gaining friends is one of your goals in developing your social skills, there may be people around you who maybe in need of a companion.
Be patient
Stop being temperamental. People will tend to shy away if they find you to be uneasy and irritated with simple matters.
Following Directions
Listen first before arguing.
Cooperation
When one volunteers to help, one develops a sense of self-worth and the other party on the other hand benefits from the support extended towards achieving their goals and objectives.
Taking Turns
Learn to give way for others. Do not be greedy of attention.
Accepting Differences
Accept if you are at fault. Avoid arguments and realize your mistakes. Be humble and say you are sorry.
Listening
Respect others’ opinions as they try to respect yours.
Remaining on Task
Stay on the task assigned. Be responsible for the task assigned to you.
To improve your social skills use the following strategies to get started today:
Warm Up Exercises
This tool is designed to allow you to perform and carry out the different behaviors being taught during social skills learning. Such warm up exercises are not real life related.
Homework Assignments
Homework assignments allow you to try new learned behavior. It is expected that exercises based on real life situations will produce positive results.
Role playing
You try to act out a short real life situation that happened to you in your community. Your role playing would show how you look at the situation that just occurred. Observers would be able to ascertain the aspects of your personality that affected the outcome.
Modeling
Somebody tries to demonstrate the appropriate behavior for you.
Instruction
Different behavioral patterns are taught in detail and the importance to social situations is explained.
Reinforcement
The knowledge acquired through verbal instruction and modeling is put into place.
Assessing your skills and how you would like to go about it is your choice. You should learn that social skills are used to interact with others. Assessment of our social skills, whatever techniques it might be, will help towards building social interaction and awareness of the social situation. Evaluate yourself and decide what to do next.
