How To Help Students Develop Relationship Skills

Developing relationship skills isn’t just crucial to learning; it’s necessary for life. And relationship-driven teaching at early ages provides the foundation.
Human connection is an integral part of learning throughout our lives, especially during our formative years. Developing solid relationship skills during a student's youth lays the groundwork for successful collaboration and conflict resolution as they grow and mature.
 
Children who form healthy relationship skills share during playtime, allow others to contribute to conversations, and are patient and understanding with peers and parents.
 
But what do relationship skills encompass, and how can we help children develop them to prepare for life both inside and outside the classroom? This article will discuss All Saints’ Episcopal Day School’s relationship-driven approach to social development and how it bolsters students’ emotional awareness and personability.

What Are Relationship Skills?

Relationship skills are a broad set of abilities that make connecting on an interpersonal level easier. Some of them are the most basic of skills we teach students without even realizing they help build relationships, including:
  • Effective communication
  • Active listening
  • Cooperative collaboration
Students start learning these traits from their very first moments in a classroom, and they will stick with them throughout their lifetimes. As they mature, their learning environment should begin focusing on more specific relationship-centered attributes such as:
  • Evaluating influences
  • Conflict resolution
  • How to offer and accept assistance
The classroom is the point of origin for many fundamental interpersonal skills, especially since it’s where students experience a good portion of their socialization. Complex issues that students deal with both in and outside of school also inform how they handle relationships, including:
 
  • Avoiding stereotyping
  • Establishing leadership roles
  • Cultural humility
 
All these traits and more belong to a spectrum of skills that facilitate building healthy relationships. While several styles of teaching promote these abilities to varying degrees, philosophies that emphasize a relationship-driven approach thoroughly prepare students to maintain social connections.
 

Relationship-Driven Teaching as a Model for Developing Interpersonal Skills

In order to foster solid interpersonal skills early on, students must be introduced to the idea of healthy relationships from a young age. Outside of the home, a student’s connection to their teacher is one of the defining relationships of their young life. Thus, teachers must strive to develop caring, emotional bonds with their students to maximize their potential for success in the classroom.
 
Strong social-emotional connections with students not only set good examples for future relationships, they’re necessary to facilitate learning. Studies show when young learners' social and emotional needs are met, they strive to perform better during classroom activities.
 
Relationship-driven teaching seeks to ensure these emotional requirements are satisfied so students can flourish in their schoolwork and social interactions. It involves forging friendly, positive connections between teachers and students. Some key methods include:
 
  • Getting to know each student’s individual personality
  • Offering students choices in their instruction that interest them and keep them engaged
  • Working with students in a collaborative manner to complete tasks and learn more about topics
 
The overall goal of the relationship-driven approach is to have students view their teacher as more of a partner than as the ruler of the classroom. A friendly teacher exemplifies a positive relationship model to students and more thoroughly prepares them for their lessons.
 
Engaged, social students learn the contents of their lessons and how to interact with other students in fruitful, healthy ways. As they study and mature, there are specific ways to aid and evaluate their development of relationship skills.
 

Relationship Skills in Early Years Education

Kindergarten and the first few years of elementary school lay the groundwork for a student’s educational and social development. There are certain skills they should begin to develop by this early age and methods teachers can employ to facilitate their understanding of these concepts:
 
  • Sharing – Learning to share is one of the most fundamental interpersonal skills one can develop, and a child who shares their toys with others during playtime is off to a good start socially. Facilitating situations that encourage students to share, such as giving each half of a game or toy, is a salient way to introduce them to the topic.
  • Non-verbal expression – While we’re still developing our language skills, we learn to discern what others are feeling by reading their expressions and body language. Drawing basic semblances from a range of emotions (e.g., happy and sad faces) can give students a simple blueprint to associate with faces in real social situations.
  • Active listening – When speech is limited, learning to listen is key to forming bonds with others. Having students vote to choose interesting books for storytime gives them an idea of group dynamics and keeps them engaged when it’s time to listen.
 

Relationship Skills in Elementary School

As students mature, the benchmarks for their social abilities change, and they must learn new skills to uphold healthy relationships. Teachers must likewise employ different techniques to ensure they understand and master these abilities. Some such skills include:
 
  • Working in groups – As students develop verbal and interpersonal skills, the size of their social circle increases. Part of this process is understanding how groups operate differently than individuals. Having students complete similar activities in teams and alone helps them understand the difficulties and benefits of collaboration.
  • Providing feedback – Amiability isn’t the only aspect of social connections, and students must learn to communicate both the positive and negative aspects of their relationships with their classmates. Having students peer-review assignments and provide constructive criticism is a salient way for them to practice this skill.
  • Understanding emotions – Students must learn to read their peers’ feelings from both verbal and expressive cues. Differentiating the tones of various vocabulary words and reading characters’ emotions in art and literature are foundational practices for applying this skill in social interactions.
 

Relationship Skills in Secondary School

As students approach maturity, their interpersonal abilities must be refined to take on the responsibilities of adult work and social life. Teachers can prepare them for their future by working on these skills in the classroom:
 
  • Adaptability – Forging relationships across differences of background and opinion is a key trait that even many fully-grown adults could benefit from working on. Placing students in groups with peers they don’t share many commonalities with is an effective way to have them communicate outside of their comfort zone.
  • Collaborative conflict resolution –As students take on more collaborative assignments, they’ll realize working in a group presents the potential for disagreement as much as fruitful progress. Providing groups with an understandable, achievable task and then allowing them to delegate work amongst themselves prepares them for the social-work dynamics they’ll encounter in their careers.
  • Assertiveness – Even power dynamics are crucial to healthy relationships, and students must learn to speak up when they feel mistreated or ignored in social settings. Incorporating student-led activities into curricula can boost the leader’s confidence and teach them to balance assertiveness and understanding when dealing with their peers.

All Saints’ Episcopal Day School: Fostering Healthy Relationship Skills in Our Students

At All Saints’, relationship-driven teaching isn’t just a mantra, it’s an everyday practice. We put social and emotional needs at the center of every lesson so that students not only feel welcomed by our teachers but learn to belong amongst a community of peers.
 
When students’ social needs are met, they play, learn, and create constructively with their peers and develop healthy social bonds. These fruitful relationship skills—along with spirituality and diligent study—are at the heart of our teaching philosophy.
 
If you want to know more about the All Saints' way, contact us to learn how we help students excel in their social and academic lives.
 
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