What is Social Problem Solving?
Social problem solving is a process of recognizing difficulties and adapting or changing to resolve problems that we encounter in everyday living. Social problem solving is an essential life skill. Strong problem-solving skills are important in social interactions throughout life. Young children learn social problem-solving skills like learning to share and asking for preferred items. They learn to use the right words, tone of voice, and body language. They also learn to read the body language and tone of voice of others. They learn to make social inferences and understand the perspectives of others. As children grow and develop social problem-solving skills become more complex. Children with strong social problem-solving skills respond better to stress. They are also more likely to be successful in personal and professional interactions as they get older.
Kids have to solve social problems throughout their days in school. These issues range from requesting help in the classroom to joining in with a basketball game on the playground. Kids learn many of these problem-solving skills through maturity, experience, and adult direction. Other times more direct teaching is necessary.
How Can we help students learn Social Problem Solving Skills?
- Teach kids to communicate their feelings in a calm way. As adults, we know that misunderstanding causes many problems in social interactions. Difficulty understanding the perspective of someone else also causes problems.
- Help students learn to identify problems. Sometimes kids don’t recognize nonverbal clues that there is a social problem.
- Model social problem skills for students. Talk about social problems that occur throughout the day. Model social problem solving and talk about your thinking.
- Use problem-solving scenarios for kids to practice social problem-solving. By using hypothetical problems kids can gain important social skills.
What are problem solving scenarios?
Jill’s class is on a field trip to a museum. Jill wasn’t paying attention and lost her group. Now she is by herself. What is the problem? How can Jill solve her problem?
Your classmate is passing out cupcakes and she did not give one to you. How do you feel? What can you do?
You are doing a math paper in class but you are confused about how to do some of it. What can you do?
It is your birthday and your grandmother just gave you a present. It’s a really boring sweater. What should you do?
Your friend at school is sitting by himself at recess and looking really sad. What can you do?
Jack and Yasine want to play a game but they want to play different games. They are arguing. What can they do?
You are at a friend’s house for dinner and they are going to eat lobster. You are allergic to lobster and shellfish. What should you do? What would you say?
These are some examples of problem solving scenario for kids. In using scenarios, students can identify problems, talk about perspectives and come up with solutions. There is usually not just one solution. It is great for students to brainstorm and come up with different ways to solve problems.
Here are more problem solving scenarios for kids:
Try this fun set of problem solving scenarios with a superhero twist!
Social Skills All Year is a comprehensive set of social skills questions for the whole year.
Get ready for back-to-school with this set of back-to-school problem-solving scenarios.
Try some of these other social problem-solving scenarios that I like:
Social and safety skill question cards