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Children learn social skills through direct instruction and through observing how others behave. They repeat the behaviors that bring them rewards and behaviors that they see are rewarded.

The following are tried and true guidelines for teaching children social skills in the primary classroom.

Tell Children What You Expect

Children need to know what teachers expect from them. It is important to set the ground rules from the day school begins. Keep them simple. The following are examples.

-Raise your hand if you want to talk.

 -Do not interrupt when other children are talking.

-Do not interrupt when I am speaking.

-Stay in your seats until I give you permission to get up.

-No hitting, yelling, pushing, or biting.

-If another child bothers you, tell me. It’s my job to take care of things like that.

-If you bother another child, you will have a time out.

Catch Children Doing Something Right

When children follow the rules, recognize them for it. Here are some examples.

-”Thank you, Marcus, for raising your hand when you wanted to speak.”

-”Good job, Kylie. Ronald pulled your hair, and you told me.”

-”I can see you really wanted to say something, Jamie. Good for you that you waited until Jackie finished what she had to say.”

In short, when children perform well in classrooms, it is important to praise them immediately.

Under React to Rude and Impolite Behavior

Children can sometimes be rude and impolite. When this happens, under react. Keep your cool. Ask the child to stop the behavior.

Immediately name the feeling you think the child is experiencing. Often that is enough. Naming a feeling for a child often calms the child because the child feels understood.

Remind the child of the classroom rules. Gently guide the child to time out if you have set time-out as the consequence for such behaviors. Keep the time-out brief.  Even a minute or two can be long enough.

Give Brief Explanations About Why Certain Behaviors are Not Allowed

Children may sometime need direct instruction about their behaviors when they do not realize that their behaviors hurt others. For example, you could say to a child, “Do you realize that when you do that, it hurts other people?”

A spontaneous, “Ouch, that hurts my feelings” often helps children realize that words hurt, too.  Children sometimes mistake verbal aggression for humor.

Something as simple as that can help children realize that they have to stop doing something.

Simple Group Instruction

Primary school children want to have friends and get along with other children. Something as brief as 15 minute sessions once a week of direct instruction could have life-long benefits for the children and create a safe and enjoyable classroom experience. The following are some topics to consider.

-How to ask someone for something.

-How to say “no” to someone who asks you for something.

-How to accept a “no” from someone else.

-How to thank someone who does something nice for you.

-How to introduce people to each other.

-How to apologize.

-How to admit you did something wrong.

-How to make up for doing something wrong.

-How to accept an apology.

-How to help another child when someone is hurting him or her.

-How to ask someone to stop doing something that hurts or bothers you.

-How to ask someone for help when someone is hurting or bothering you.

-How to listen to a friend who is feeling sad.

To teach these skills, first describe the topic. Then provide a brief description of how to respond. Then role play in front of the children how to respond.

Next, have the children role play with each other. Have the children play both roles. Finally, give the children a few minutes to talk about the activity.

Teach by Your Own Behaviors

How you as a primary classroom teacher deal with the children teaches them a great deal about social skills. When what you do makes them feel good, they are likely to imitate you. When they see that you reward the behavior you want, children will want those rewards for themselves. Practice good social skills yourself, and the children will learn from you.

Summary

Children learn social skills from direct instruction and from observation. Primary school teachers are positioned to teach children skills they will use for the rest of their lives. In the short term, children with good social skills will contribute to enjoyable classroom experiences for the students and the teacher.

About the Author

Jane F. Gilgun, Ph.D., LICSW, is a professor, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA. You can read and/or buy books she has written for children and for adults at http://www.stores.lulu.com.  You can also download many of her books to the Kindle or iphone at Amazon Kindle.  Her books include Shame, Blame, and Child Sexual Abuse, The NEATS: A Child and Family Assessment, and Five Little Cygnets Cross the Bundoran Road.

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Creativity could be taught to kids easily if you know how to do it.  It is always good to start while they are young so that they could develop it as they grow older.  Creativity is very important to a person that is why kids must be taught how to be creative while they are young.

Everything a child possesses could be either inherited or taught.  Creativity in a child could easily be taught.  Parents must bear in mind that a creative child has more probability to have a better future than a child who is not creative.  If the kid has a creative mind he could better cope with life. Creativity is therefore very important for kids.

Teaching kids to be creative is not hard if you follow some guides and tips.

Start while kids are young

Teaching the kids to be creative at an early age will help them to become better people as they grow up.  Creativity does not only mean that the kids will learn to make good things.  It also means having an imaginative mind that could help in deciding matters and handling simple things as kids.

Start with the basics.

Everything that is taught produces better result when started with the basics.  A good start will lead to a good result; therefore parents must start teaching the kids to be creative by starting with the simple things.  A simple reminder when kids are around is a good way of instilling a creative mind to the kids.  Letting the kids follow simple instructions is also very useful if you want creative minds for kids.

Buy books and other useful materials for the kids to develop their creativity.

Kids love activities that will keep their hands and minds busy.  One way of enhancing creativity is to buy good books and other activity tools for kids to use.  Let the kids create their own projects using clay, pieces of paper, blocks or anything available around them. 

Allow the kids to do things on their own with your guidance.

Letting the kids do what they want with materials is helping them to develop creative minds and hands.  If they learn to do things on their own there is no reason for them not to learn to cope with things in the future.

Allow the kids to help you do household chores.

One of the best ways to develop creativity in kids is to let them do things at home with you.  There is no harm in letting kids help at home provided you teach them to do things properly and be safe from harmful materials.  Never mind if the kids make mistakes.  You could always correct those mistakes.  What is important is that the kids are learning and that they are developing their creativity.

Always find time to do activities with kids.

There are lots of fun activities and creative activities that you can do with the kids.  You can have story time, ask and answer time, clay time, crafts and arts time and outdoor activities.  All these activities will help enhance creative hands and mind.

Children who have creative hands and mind will grow up as better individuals who could handle things and easily cope with problems that they encounter.  It is very important to teach children to be creative so that they will have a better future.

You will not be able to revolutionize your children’s inherent temperament, but you will be able to edify the children to stick up for their rights, with poise.  I am very proud of my 4-year-old little girl. She knows her manners, she says “thank you” “you’re welcome” and “please.” She also helps around when it comes to chores and she is so apprehensive about the way people feel. What will I do when I notice her fellow school mate taking advantage of her and monopolizing her prized Barbie and taking off with her little necklace? I will try my best to teach her to stand up for herself, which seems to be more important than encouraging the little girl to be easygoing.  There is a right or wrong to everything and within this article, I will be teaching you what I have learnt so far.

When it comes to relationship in schools, one of the best techniques that works is to be assertive, this virtually helps with everything. Be assertive at home, on the playground and in school. This actually comes from Stuart Fishoff, Ph.D, who is a professor of psychology. When being assertive in the classroom, it is going to put the child with a big advantage because she is going to be comfortable with demanding the teacher’s attention, raising her little hand in the air if she knows the answer to a question and asking for that extra help when she seems lost. With teaching the child to be assertive, she will also have an easier time when it comes to making friends, since she is not going to be diffident to say, “Can I play with you guys too?”

Yes, there is a vast between the child being assertive and belligerent. Assertiveness is letting other individuals know what your wants and needs are, Belligerents is imposing the individuals wants and needs on other people. A child who is belligerent is going to attempt to manhandle another child, while an assertive child would say, “I’d like to have my turn whenever you are done with your turn.”

Indulge your infant. Divergent to what people believe, it is not possible to spoil a child that is under the age of one. Do not be frightened to cuddle the newborn who is squawking and giggle when he makes that funny face, feed him when he demands. This is going to give him a good sense of security and safety – this is a major component of confidence.

Discipline your toddler. When your child’s first birthday starts to peak around the corner, it is time to start laying down those laws. If you do not set restrictions with the child, then she may learn to scream for what she wants. Come up with a web of strict rules and dictate that it is your way only.

When your child is pinching you do not say “stop being mean and being a brat.” Say, “Stop, pinching hurts me.” Belittling your child is not going to get you anywhere, it will only make her feel bad and discourage assertiveness.

If you tell your child she cannot jump on the furniture, do not let her jump on the furniture on Friday nights because you are tired from a long week of work. You have to be unswerving with your discipline or you may get nowhere. If you are constantly changing the rules, then she will not know what to expect next and this will make it harder for her to be assertive.

Briefly explain your command. Instead of saying, “because I said so,” you should say, “you have to go to bed and go to sleep so you won’t be tired for tomorrow.” Giving a brief explanation to your child will help them to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong and know why it is right or wrong.

Around the age of two and a half, children will start to intermingle with one another. Now it is time to encourage that passive little girl (or boy) to toughen up. If your child is always getting gypped out of their time on that playground or having their toys snatched from their hands then they may not realize that it is okay to stand up for themselves and may not know how to courteously do it. Explain to your child that it is fine for them to demand their fair share, give the child suggestions on how they should handle those situations in the future.

Many children try to fit in with whatever the multitude is doing. Teach your child not to copy what the other children are doing – it is okay for children to have their own personality and be themselves. Tell them being different will make life more fascinating. This will teach your child not to be a follower. Tell your child it is okay to decide for herself.

If you are always telling your child just what to do, how to do it and when to do it – then they are never going to learn to take initiative and do things themselves. Instead of unilaterally saying, “Time to go to the park,” or “lets go play a game of duck, duck goose,” encourage your child to decide what type of activities they want to do.

Once your child has got old enough, you should carry on a conversation with them; persuade the child to speak their mind, even if you totally disagree with her. You cannot get mad at your daughter for not liking someone. If you shoot your child down every time they have an opinion about something that is different from yours, then this will shy the child away from asserting herself.

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Computer science and engineering is a combination of two fields that is  computer science and computer engineering.

    Computer Science and Engineering is a subject in general dealing with computer hardware and software. It encompasses a variety of topics that relates to computation, like abstract analysis of algorithms, formal grammars, and subjects such as programming languages, program design, software and computer hardware. It includes the design of software (Compilers, Operating systems), design of hardware (RAM, CPU etc.). In other words, this is the study of computers that gives information about hardware and operating systems for e.g. registers, multitasking kernels, data buses, address buses etc. This branch of engineering is the study of the principles of computing that helps an individual to understand how computers solve the problems. As a computer professional, an individual can find job in many environments in academia, research, industry, government, private and business organizations. The role of computer engineer is to analyze problems for solutions, formulating and testing, working in teams for product development, multimedia equipment and much more. After doing a course in Computer Science, one can research in various areas like artificial Intelligence, computer design and Engineering, Computer Architecture, Information technology, Software Engineering, Computer theory, Operating systems and networks and software applications.

     In computer science and engineering, we study the principles of engineering that involve in the design, engineering, development, integration and testing of a computer system at almost all levels.  This branch of engineering also involves applied areas of Maths and science, electrical and electronics theory, materials engineering and programming fundamentals.Computer science and engineering students will learn about basic engineering techniques, as other engineering students, during first year course. These techniques include Engineering Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, and Engineering drawing. From second year they are exposed to core computer science subjects like programming, data structures, Digital logic, Theoretical computer science, Algorithms, Computer networks, Operating systems, Web technologies, Databases and Computer Architecture are few to mention.CSE is related with invention and development of software and hardware.

     This is really an excellent field to have opportunities both in softwarecompanies and higher studies. As computing is extensively applied to almost every walk of life it created massive jobs for CSE students. On the same time more demand and application kept it research funding alive attracting many students to opt for higher studies.

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