Teams are everywhere and not just in sport. The skills to work effectively in a group are required in almost every situation in life and are vital for learning and growth. If you’re looking to help your child with theirs, here are some tips that were shared by a primary school in Cheltenham.

Communication Skills

Teamwork comes down to good communication so you will need to work on your child speaking and listening skills.

Disagreements

They will also need to learn how to deal with disagreements and share their points of view correctly without causing offence. Children can do this by remembering to think before speaking and thinking about how what they want to say may be interpreted by others. 

How to Deal with Difficult Emotions

Another area to explore is managing difficult feelings. Your child may encounter a few of these conflicting situations where they are overwhelmed by their emotions and how they feel in the moment. Mindfulness and other coping strategies can help in situations like this.

Practise

There’s no better way for children to learn the skill other than practice so we recommend looking for group activities your child can be a part of such as a sports club, team games within the home and any other activity that gets them interacting with others. 

Confidence

To help your child work effectively in a team, you must build their confidence and willingness to get involved. This is something you can do by again giving your child opportunities to practise. 

While a team sport or activity as such can be beneficial for children in developing team working skills, it’s important that it’s something that they first feel comfortable and happy with. If it’s something that they’re not keen on and are being forced into, it can result in an unpleasant experience and do more harm to their confidence than good.

Disclosure: This is a collaborative post.