Self-awareness skills are crucial in teaching social skills to children. This surrounds the theory of mind and perspective. It’s learning the capability to relate to others and see things from their perspective and is a crucial skill to teach kids. Why? It helps them to interact and communicate with others. 

Children begin developing the ability to understand their fellow’s feelings and perspectives between the ages of three and seven years. These ages are fundamental in their growth and there are three types of perspective. Read on to discover more. 

The Three Types of Perspective  

In total, there are three variants of perspective taking, these comprise: 

Perceptual: Often referred to as visual perspective taking, this relates to how a child perceives what another person hears or sees.  

Conceptual: This cognitive perspective involves recognizing different thoughts and comprehending desires, points of view, plans, or attitudes. 

Affective: Also known as social sensitivity, affective perspective-taking is being able to pinpoint and comprehend other’s feelings . The ability to pinpoint feelings appears to develop earlier than the ability to justify them.  

How To Teach Your Children Perspective Skills 

There are many ways to teach perspective. We have listed some of the most effective below: 

Empathic, Warm, And Responsive Parentin

How you act as a parent massively affects the development of your child’s perspective skills. If you’re warm, empathic, and responsive your children will likely show more prosocial behavior and empathy. When your child is showing physical or mental signs of being stressed, comforting them shows them that they are cared for and loved, irrespective of whether this is from an adult or their peers. 

As your children grow, they will begin to comprehend the perspective process, learning that it is an interpretative, active, and constructive thought process. Depending on personal and past childhood experiences, kids may interpret events differently. 

Modeling

Understanding perspective is an essential skill you can teach your kids. You can do this through modeling. What does this mean? Showing your children the respect you would an adult. When your kids receive mutual respect, they tend to be more responsive and supportive, which improves their ability to embrace mutual perspective-taking . 

Altruistic behaviors such as donating to charity or sharing sweets with friends and family have an association with cognitive perspective-taking.

Visual Feedback

When it comes to learning new skills, children are very visual. One proven way to heighten perspective-taking in kids involves filming them and playing the reel back to them. When a child watches themselves on screen, they see things from another point of view. This leads to them shifting their attributes and focuses. 

One unique way to work on flexible thinking and perspective is to show your children a photograph and get them to think of two different thoughts the person in the image may be having.  

Even preschoolers are familiar with how different visual perceptions work.  

In addition, they know that they may see objects in a different light to 

 others and vice versa. 

Role-Playing 

Children who role-play can see different perspectives in social situations. Acting out multiple roles from various scenarios, particularly problem situations helps your kids to show empathy for others . This gives them the skills to care for others going through tough times, whether a parent, a friend, or a peer. Perspective-taking is deemed the cognitive empathy component. In addition, there is also an emotional empathy aspect, which surrounds your children’s emotional response to another’s experience, simply through observing others’ experiences. 

Embracing the perspectives of others encourages your children to embrace elaborate strategies when interpersonal conflicts arise. This is crucial for interpreting issues, and reaching consensus in various social settings. 

Collaborative projects and teamwork

Assigning collaborative projects to children necessitates teamwork, thus considering other perspectives. This boosts morale and communication and ensures they understand the viewpoints of others. This can help your children in various social settings, spanning from activities partaken at school, and as they grow, in the work environment. 

Encouraging your children to view things from different angles can unlock their creativity. Studies suggest that different teams engaging in perspective activities produce more creative ideas than parallel teams . 

We do not live in isolation, which means to be successful in life, your children must work and engage with others. Working effectively with others is a key part of this. 

The Bottom Line  

Children who can understand the perspective of others boast numerous benefits, including the ability to interact in social situations, and conceptually comprehend authoritative, friendship, and peer roles. In addition, kids who understand the perspective of others can make and maintain social relationships. 

In a nutshell, teaching your children perspective-taking skills means they can interpret and predict the words and actions of fellows and make social inferences about the intentions of others. 

Without these skills, children have fewer capabilities with subtle social cues and can struggle in social situations when they grow up.