The theme in our Social Skills program this month is Your Voice Matters: You have the right to express yourself and your voice has value.
Underlying Principles
Assertiveness means to express your thoughts, feelings and boundaries in a respectful way. It can help you stand up for your point of view, communicate your wants and needs, and set boundaries. Assertiveness can also help you reduce conflict, control anger, and improve your mental health.
Targeted Skills
Assertiveness, problem solving, friendship skills and perspective taking.
Sample Activities we will use with clients
Problem solving using I statements:
Making I statements is a conflict resolution strategy that allows you to express and take responsibility for your feeling without blaming the other person. I statements can open up the possibility for genuine communication because they don’t automatically put the other person on the defensive.
Role play standing up for yourself:
A great way to practice assertiveness and to build confidence, is to role play being assertive with others. When role playing our specialists will assign roles and outline expectations: Asserting oneself requires confident body language, firm tone, eye contact and clear direct language.
Practice sharing about yourself:
We will have clients draw a self-portrait sharing information about what they like to do, favorite foods, etc. (this can be done at home too!). We don’t need to be shy about sharing things we like and we should feel good about who we are and what we think. Share the pictures with other kids and notice the differences. Talk about what makes everyone unique and how we all enjoy different things…and that is ok. Each person has their own special talents that contribute to a better world.
These are just a few of the activities we will focus on this month in learning to express ourselves.
We hope everyone is enjoying the summer so far. As temperatures rise, we all need to stay safe and be aware of warning signs of a problem. Take a look at this short video for safety tips.