According to Harvard's longest study of adult life, relationships play the most important role in making human beings happy. Social connections not only enhance mental and emotional well-being, but they also affect our physical wellness. This fact is noticeably true even early in childhood. However, certain difficulties may affect a child’s ability to interact with his or her peers, teachers, and even family members. How can parents, teachers, and professionals help children develop great social skills? We bring in Alex Kelly to talk to us about this topic.

Listen to my conversation with Alex Kelly and learn:

• What got her into speech pathology
• How Alex realized she wanted to focus on social skills
• The critical role that social skills play in the lives of children
• The definition of social skills
• The components of social skills and how they develop from birth to school age
• Why assertiveness is the final stage of social skills
• Why getting help for social skills when your child is already at school is already quite late
• The most common problems Alex encounters in her work
• Some successful stories
• How important a child's environment is in building his or her social skills
• The relationship between self-awareness, self-esteem, and social skills
• Why being alone and not wanting friends is not necessarily a bad thing
• How technology can help build social skills among children
• How social skills learned at school could be transferred in home life