Parents as a Social Bridge for Their Children

 Parents as a Social Bridge for Their Children

By Denise Carlin M.S., family Coach at The UCLA Family Commons
July 24th, 2011

Parents are the social bridge for your elementary-aged children. You can provide more of a social bridge for your child when you have more of an understanding of how they’re really interacting at school. One of the things you might do is go to the school during drop-off time, during P.E., or during some kind of a recess time when you’re seeing your child interact with classmates in kind of a free-form atmosphere. Another way is to go during the lunch time and watch how your son or daughter is interacting and talking with the other children, how they decide where to sit, who they’re sitting with, etc.  You can also get more information by asking their teacher if you might be one of the facilitators for a group discussion section of the class day. So, for example, if they’re doing an English lesson and they need to break up into small groups to have a discussion about a story that they just read, the teacher might allow you to facilitate or oversee that process so that you can witness how your child is acting, how they’re interacting with peers, and how they speak up.  After the school day, when you are at home, ask your child how that part of the day compares to other times that he or she is in school.  From that wider perspective, you can approach your child’s feelings and come up with the best strategy to help him or her to better meet social needs.