From a very early age, it is important that we socialise, because it is a practice that we need at every stage of our life. Socialising is particularly crucial to a child’s development for both physical and emotional wellbeing purposes.
What is Socialising?
Socialising put simply is interacting with others.
It is essential that these skills are developed at a young age and that connections begin to form because it has an impact at every stage of your child’s life. Not encouraging socialising can have significant effects on a child’s mental, physical and emotional wellbeing.
Why is Socialising Important?
Socialising at a young age is important because your child will develop the skills needed to help with healthy development and relationships such as the following.
1. Communication Skills
Socialising allows children to communicate with others outside of their immediate family and will help them understand risk-taking, social cues, how to listen and understand others.
2. Confidence and Independence
Social interactions will help children develop their self-esteem and build resilience towards the unknown and in turn, create connections that make new social interactions less scary. This is a particularly important skill for the first day of school because school can be a big and scary new environment for your child.
3. Sharing
Socialising encourages children to interact with others and share resources and knowledge. By sharing their knowledge, stories and resources, they are beginning to understand the concept of others that will help with creative and logical thinking later on in life.
4. Empathy
Socialising introduces your child to new ideas, new concepts and differences, but it also helps to develop empathy. Empathy is an important quality because it helps children be kind and caring to others. Socialising, as mentioned above, is not just talking but listening, watching and reacting as well. Watching a person help someone that is hurt, or stand up to others for someone being mistreated is an important lesson in empathy that can really only be taught via socialising. Children that are empathetic will also be more accepting, open and resilient in the future as they have developed skills to face confrontation, to communicate, and are able to integrate into new environments positively.
5. Friends
Finally, socialising is most important to help your child make friends. Friends are important for a number of reasons such as increasing your child’s vocabulary, creating connections which encourage different ways of thinking, and creating lifelong memories that you and your child will treasure.
At Inspired, we encourage social interaction and socialising both in and outside of our environment and in the community. We believe socialising builds strong and caring individuals that are future-ready for what life throws at them.
‘We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing’.
