Fun activities to help kids build friendships

Humans are social creatures. That’s why friendships are such a crucial part of a child’s development.

As well as providing endless treasured memories, early friends boost emotional skillsets and social skills for kids, which become invaluable in later life.

However, as many parents know, it’s not always as easy as telling your child to “go and make friends”. Some kids require more of a helping hand. And that’s where we think we (and a few of our LEGO® Friends…) might just be able to help.

Let’s get stuck into some activities to boost your child’s social skills.

1. Creative LEGO building

Social skills for kids: Sharing, self-expression, self-confidence.

This activity is all about encouraging free-flowing building, which bolsters social skills for kids in several ways, something we’ll discuss shortly.

It’s probably best to talk through this idea with your child first, before their friend(s) arrive(s) to play, so that your child can be the one who suggests the game. This also works great the more friends you have around.

It’s super simple.

Get everyone to write down some build topics on pieces of paper (e.g. music, food, fashion, animals, etc.), pop them in a bowl, then take one of the suggestions, stick a timer on, and then get everybody building with your spare LEGO bricks!

When the timer goes off, make sure everyone gets the chance to share their build with the rest of the builders to explain any cool features. Sharing is one of the best parts of this game, and also the part where their social skills are used – and friendship bonds are formed!

As a grown-up, you can encourage all feedback to be positive. If, for example, one of the kids starts giving feedback that borders on teasing, you can calmly suggest how they might feel if they received that feedback themselves and remind them how to be kind by giving out positive reinforcement to kids who deliver feedback in a kind way.

Although it might seem uncomfortable, staying calm and composed in the face of this type of challenging behavior can actually be a great example of conflict resolution for kids to learn from. This type of feedback loop might be the closest thing we can get to conflict resolution for kids.

This type of activity can be replicated with all manner of creative endeavors, including drawing, painting, writing, or even incorporating music!

2. Social hobbies

Social skills for kids: teamwork, active listening, respect for diversity.

Shyer kids often require structure when it comes to being a friend, if they do not feel comfortable initiating social interactions.

That’s where getting your child to participate in local team activities – like choirs, orchestras, drama clubs or sporting teams – can really help out. They are goal-oriented, which as we’ve seen takes the pressure off kids to be immediately social, allowing them to ease into their friendships more naturally.

It’s also useful to be around kids from a diverse range of backgrounds, but with at least one common interest. That’s why it’s important to include your child in the decision-making process, rather than making it for them.

3. Practicing eye contact

Social skills for kids: active listening, non-verbal communication, empathy.

Kids do what we do, not always what we say. That gives us, as caregivers, a good opportunity to help them at home, by practicing useful social skills that will benefit their friendships when we aren’t there to help them.

Let’s start with the basics – eye contact. The basis for nearly all social interactions. We can help encourage this, as parents, by putting away those phones when you’re talking or playing with your kids and making an active choice to maintain eye contact. This might take a little time before this becomes automatic for you (and your child!)

If your child is still a baby, you can utilize games such as ‘Peek-a-boo’ to encourage them to get used to eye contact.

If they’re a little older and struggling with eye contact, try not to force them to do it – it’ll almost certainly have the opposite of the intended effect. Instead, be patient and reward them with positive reinforcement. Saying “I love it when you look into my eyes when we’re talking, it really helps me know you’re listening” is far better for a child to hear than “why are you avoiding looking at me?”.

A fun activity you can try is face painting! This will keep them facing towards you, but it might not feel as uncomfortable for them as normal. It also gives you a good chance for reinforcement (“it helps me paint when you look at me, thank you”).

4. Build a LEGO set together

Social skills for kids: cooperation, teamwork, problem-solving.

Friends who build together, stay together! The next time you buy a LEGO set for your little one, create a scenario whereby they build it with one or two of their friends.

As they work to piece together their build, they’ll practice their communication and problem-solving skills, building friendships along the way. The final result will give them a positive sense of shared accomplishment.

With character-heavy themes such as the LEGO Friends sets, there’s also a strong chance that the kids might tap into all those social skills that role-playing provides. These include empathy, adaptability and assertiveness. If they’re fans of the show, they might particularly relate to characters that match their personality on-screen, from the shy Paisley, to the outgoing Olly!

LEGO building as an activity is particularly useful for shy kids, as having something to focus on sets them a ‘goal’ for the interaction, and can distract from feelings of awkwardness or social anxiety.

We hope that these activities can be a great kick start to boost your kids’ budding social skills!