How often do you watch your kid play outdoors with their friends, interact with guests, check up on extended family members, or socialize at family functions or parties?
The younger generations (Gen Z & Gen Alpha) prefer socializing in the virtual world rather than having face-to-face conversations.
According to experts, between 2003 and 2022, face-to-face socializing among teenagers fell by more than 45%. This habit has considerably hampered their ability to form real connections and bonds in person.
Children should develop social awareness to be able to strike up conversations and communicate with confidence. School is the primary place where children get exposed to the social environment and play an important role in developing social awareness. The importance of social awareness cannot be overlooked as it is one of the most essential skills for holistic development.
What is social awareness?
Social awareness provides children with the base to develop emotional intelligence. It is important to know about your surroundings in order to survive in this world. Children start learning about themselves; people around them, different emotions, perspectives, and good manners.
Socially smart children are good at making new friends at school, connecting with educators, and uplifting their overall classroom performance. Well, this is just the tip of the iceberg, there are many notable benefits of social skills in education, let’s dive into the details.
Importance of Social Awareness for Kids
- Self-reflection
Does your kid know how the smallest of actions and words can leave a huge impact on people? Social awareness makes the kids realize the value of actions and words, making them more self-aware. Children should know the right code of conduct they should follow in a social setting. Schools like The Blue Bells School use effective techniques to make their students self-reflect and grow as responsible individuals.
- Emotional Intelligence
Social awareness fosters emotional intelligence among students. Schools help children learn about the spectrum of emotions like happiness, anger, joy, frustration, contentment, etc. positively. This enables children to understand the mood of their peers and empathise with their situation. Activities like storytelling, role-playing, and emotion charts help children express themselves while simultaneously recognizing the feelings of others.
- Stronger Relationships
Humans are social animals. Having strong connections and relationships is very important in today’s world. Being socially aware from a young age helps children build a good social circle. A valuable bond with family, friends, and peers is a crucial part of holistic development and for their mental well-being. Schools help children develop listening, speaking, and emotional skills which help them make tight bonded relationships.
- Conflict Management
Disagreements and differences in opinions are natural and inevitable. Kids often face such situations at school, making it important for schools to cultivate social skills for student development. Social awareness guides children to deal with such situations respectfully and constructively. By teaching communication skills, problem-solving, & negotiation skills, teachers can help students grow into socially smart people.
- Good manners
Manners are the basic thing that children should start learning from their home. Children can kickstart their journey of social awareness by learning to say thank you, sorry, excuse me, please, etc. Schools also play an important role in reinforcing such good habits in the kids contributing to student development through awareness. You should make sure that your child is not just well-educated but well-mannered.
Social awareness activities for kids
Understanding the role of schools in student growth, many CBSE schools have started planning social awareness activities for kids. Here are some of the examples below –
- Current news discussions
Newspapers are a great tool to keep kids updated about what’s happening in society. Filter out the age-appropriate social issues to discuss. This makes the children aware of real-world challenges and motivates them to be responsible citizens.
- Group learning activities to foster teamwork
Plan activities where the children can connect, collaborate, and learn with their peers. While working towards a team, they learn to keep forward their opinions, understand other kids’ perspectives, and develop social skills.
- Volunteer work
Volunteering and contributing to society play a key role in building empathy in students. Community service activities like donation drives, cleaning a park, sharing food, etc. foster feelings of kindness, and social responsibility.
CBSE schools fostering social values realize the importance of social awareness for kids and design a curriculum that helps shape their social skills for student development. The Blue Bells School, the leading CBSE board school in Gurgaon not only nurtures children with academic knowledge but also provides them with skills and values that help them excel in life, not just in exams.
