As parents, your kids probably mean everything in the world to you. You watch them grow every single day from tiny individuals to teens and young adults, and it’s almost like it was only just yesterday when you were wiping their bottoms and teaching them to talk. In the course of their development, they start to relate with and mingle with their age groups, developing social skills, and making friends.
At the age of 7, children develop stronger and more stable friendships with other children from school and in the neighborhood. Playing together, studying together, eating together, doing almost everything together might seem so much fun and innocent, but eventually social conflicts or social problems become inevitable, and that’s where most parents get into uncharted territories.
“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.” - Anne Frank
While this may be true, leaving your children to develop real-life problem-solving skills that will help them become better human beings when they’re away from home is an important task that should neither be left for them to figure out on their own nor in the hands of the schools alone. You, as a parent, can even have a more significant impact on your child than any teacher at school ever can.
Social problems are problems we encounter in our everyday lives, and because kids spend more time with their close friends than acquaintances, they tend to have more conflict with them due to different temperaments, styles of play, and opinions. As parents, you are obligated to help your kids solve social problems in their lives by teaching them to cooperate, negotiate, collaborate, self-advocate, and respect others, and that’s where the 18-inch Doll ‘Playtime By Eimmie’ comes in handy.
Encourage Your Kids To Build Social Problem-Solving Skills By Playing With Dolls
While this may sound new, the benefits kids derive from playing with dolls have been well documented. The 18-inch doll Playtime by Eimmie is no exception.
Social problem-solving refers to the cognitive-behavioral process of finding adaptive ways of coping with problematic everyday situations. To encourage your kids to solve problems with other people in a distinct process, below are four brilliant techniques you can adopt:
- Practice Clear Communication. Helping children learn how to easily express their thoughts and feelings with their friends and family is essential for their development. Children love to play with dolls together with their friends, that’s why teaching them to state directly how they feel at certain times is necessary, and this opens the door for honest communication with their friends when they play.
- Use Role-Play To Encourage Problem-Solving. Since conflict with their peers is inevitable, empowering your children to handle it and come up with solutions is essential. With the 18 inch doll, your child can engage in fun and educative role-playing games with their friends. In such role-plays, they learn how to identify the source of problems, and you can ask open-ended questions that spur them to come up with solutions and enlist their imaginations.
- Encourage Them To Seek Help. While we wish our kids could be as smart as Albert Einstein and solve all possible social problems on their own, it’s almost impossible. Kids must be reminded from an early stage that they can’t solve all their problems on their own, and it’s essential for them to seek help from a trusted adult if the problem makes them feel unsafe or unworthy. If they’re hurting and have tried to solve the problem independently, they should be encouraged to talk to an adult.
- Help Them understand That It’s Okay To Disagree. Best friends are usually those with a lot of fights and disagreements, but your kids need to be reminded that sometimes friends don’t agree on certain things. When kids play with dolls, a lot of conflicts could arise: what 18-inch doll furniture to buy, what clothes for 18-inch dolls are popular, etc.
