Fostering an Environment of Social Competence

This course will define and explore the term ‘social competence’ and consider how adults can actively develop an environment that fosters and nurtures children’s social competence skills.

Participants will focus on strategies and techniques that shape and support these developing skills in children, mindful of the expectations of society, cultures and communities.

We will examine the progression towards enhanced social competence skills in comparison to solely managing and guiding behaviour, and reflect on what this shift means in practice for teachers in early childhood settings.

Discussion will include:

• Teaching pro-social skills;
• Reinforcement activity;
• Specified stages – challenges and opportunities;
• Resilience;
• Empathic, confrontive and guided assertion;
• Bicultural, Pasifika, other cultural perspectives.

Participants will:

• Gain techniques for providing pro-social skills;
• Increase their understanding of cultural perspectives;
• Acquire strategies for developing resilience in children.