Social and emotional changes are part of your child’s journey to adulthood. You have a big role to play in helping your child develop adult emotions and social skills. Strong relationships with family and friends are vital for your child’s healthy social and emotional development. Here are some ideas to help you support your child’s social and emotional development.
You can be a role model for positive relationships with your friends, children, partner and colleagues. Your child will learn from seeing relationships that have respect, empathy and positive ways of resolving conflict. You can also role-model positive ways of dealing with difficult emotions, moods and conflict. For example, there’ll be times when you’re feeling cranky, tired and unsociable. Instead of withdrawing from your child or getting into an argument, you could say, “I’m tired and cross. I feel I can’t talk now without getting upset. Can we have this conversation after dinner?”
Getting to know your child’s friends and making them welcome in your home will help you keep up with your child’s social relationships. It also shows that you recognise how important your child’s friends are to your child’s sense of self. If you’re concerned about your child’s friends, you might be able to guide your child towards other social groups. But banning a friendship or criticising your child’s friends could have the opposite effect. That is, your child might want to spend even more time with the group of friends you’ve banned.
Active listening can be a powerful way of strengthening your relationship with your child in these years. To listen actively, you need to stop what you’re doing when your child wants to talk. If you’re in the middle of something, make a time when you can listen. Respect your child’s feelings and opinions and try to understand their perspective, even if it’s not the same as yours. For example, “It sounds like you’re feeling left out because you’re not going to the party on Thursday night”.
Telling your child how you feel when they behave in particular ways helps your child learn to read and respond to emotions. It also models positive and constructive ways of relating to other people. It can be as simple as saying something like “I felt really happy when you invited me to your school performance”.
(Adapted from https://raisingchildren.net.au)
Question 44: Which of the following could be the best title of the passage?
A. Be a role model with your children in adolescence
B. Share your feelings with your children in adolescence
C. The benefits of social and emotional development in adolescence
D. Supporting social and emotional development in adolescence
Question 45: The word “them” in paragraph 3 refers to _______
A. your child’s relationships B. role models
C. your child D. your child’s friends
Question 46: The word “vital” in the paragraph 1 is closet in meaning to _______
A. simple B. positive C. essential D. sociable
Question 47: According to paragraph 3, why shouldn’t you criticize your child’s friends?
A. It has negatively affected your child B. It makes them satisfied
C. It makes them welcome in your home D. It has positive effects on your child
Question 48: The word “deal with” in paragraph 2 is closet in meaning to _______
A. reject B. handle C. imitate D. cherish
Question 49: According to the passage, which of the following is NOT TRUE about the ideas to support your child’s healthy social and emotional development in adolescence?
A. Be a role model
B. Learn to connect with others by keeping his real feelings back
C. Listen to your child’s feelings
D. Get to know your child’s friends
Question 50: Which of the following can be inferred from the saying like “I felt really happy when you invited me to your school performance” in paragraph 5?
A. It means that your child should learn to socialize with others in more positive ways
B. It means that your child may behave impolitely.
C. It means that your child needn’t learn to read your emotions
D. It means that your child doesn’t know how to response his emotions.
