Parents want kids to have good social skills

Results of a new survey completed for Hasbro Inc. have been released - Raising Happy Kids: Survey Highlights The Importance of Teaching Children Good Social Skills From the article:

"Parents have come to recognize social skills, more than mere niceties for everyday life, are the base for raising 'great kids' who ultimately become successful, confident and happy adults," says Stacy DeBroff, CEO of Mom Central. "These skills, which include listening, being polite and knowing how to share, shape how a child will be perceived by their peers, teachers, adults, and ultimately employers."

Seems reasonable.

Despite the overwhelming significance they place on social skills, today's parents find it a constant struggle to teach their kids proper manners and necessary socialization techniques.

This has been one of my arguments for homeschooling - that the extra time I end up having with my kids allows me to model appropriate behaviors, point out others modeling good behaviors, and help correct inappropriate behaviors as they are happening.

"While parents understand the need for behavior correction, it can become frustrating," said DeBroff. "Especially with the added time pressures of a typical busy family schedule. We don't want to spend what limited time we do have being the 'bad guy' and constantly correcting our children's behavior."

And I imagine it would be incredibly frustrating to feel like the limited time I had with my children outside of school were spent harping on them about their poor manners. It's part of my same argument up above - I want to enjoy my kids' company, not spend those couple of hours each day correcting what's wrong with them. LOL - instead I spend the entire day correcting them! Only joking... a little. ;P

"As preschools and kindergartens turn to an increasingly academic curriculum, the necessity is that children come into the classroom with basic social skills in place," says DeBroff.

So this illustrates two things: one, that the role of the school is to teach academics. That's fine, but it blows the pants off the Socialization issue that opponents always seem to bring up as an argument against homeschooling. Two, maybe sending A. to kindergarten isn't quite the right approach. LOL

Oh, and I'm sure it comes as no surprise that Hasbro has now created a game to help teach kids social skills....