Social Skills Groups
“I want my child to have the confidence and know-how to make and keep good friends”
Friendship is the cornerstone of childhood and adolescence. Friends enrich each other’s lives and people feel good about themselves. Building successful friendships is a critical skill for both children and teens, and one that they will be using—and refining—all of their lives.
Some children need extra support in forming lasting friendships, a sense of belonging to a peer group, and a high comfort level with social situations.
SNRG’s Positive Steps Social Skills Groups help children build a toolkit for initiating and maintaining social connection. Our program is unique, combining traditional socialization strategies with behavior intervention to help children and teens access friendship with new and different positive social behavior. Participants in the Positive Steps Social Skills Program learn to choose the new social behaviors because they find themselves making friends across settings: school; sports; library; camp; birthday parties. The best feedback is success…and some good, close friends.
The Positive Steps Program is conducted in our beautiful Santa Monica office and Clover Park, which is right next door to SNRG.
Positive Steps 1 (Preschool and Pre-Kindergarten)
Through play and result-oriented behavior intervention strategies, children develop self-awareness and greater understanding of their social world. Therapists work on developing interactive play, sharing, taking turns, back-and-forth conversation, transitioning between activities, and self-regulation.
Positive Steps 2 (Kindergarten and 1st Grade)
Through structured and unstructured games and enjoyable activities, children begin to become more independent in social situations. New skills are introduced that teach successful peer interactions: initiating conversations, reciprocal verbal and nonverbal communication, social boundaries, frustration tolerance during group/team activities, self-regulation, and maintaining friendships over time.
Positive Steps 3 (2nd and 3rd Grade)
The goal of Positive Steps 3 is independence in social situations. Sharing interests and understanding a friend’s perspective during play are important areas of focus for this group. Sustaining friendship relies on friends showing respect and curiosity about each other’s interests and ideas. Therapists work with the children on “reading” and comprehending the social behaviors of peers; collaboration and cooperation with group members or peers in the park during play/sports/games; increased flexibility; planning play in a group setting. Generalizing these skills to school — both yard and classroom — birthday parties, organized team sports, the beach, or park results independent positive social interaction for your child!
Positive Steps 1-3 are foundation programs.
Upper Elementary, Middle School, and Teen Groups follow with refinement of social skills, based on a child’s specific challenges and strengths.
“The best part of my group is how fun it is!”
