Middle School Inter And Intrapersonal Skills
What middle school lessons are meant to teach intrapersonal skills?
Any middle school lesson or experience that calls on the child to explain or to self-study their own motivations and beliefs really helps to foster intrapersonal knowledge. Intrapersonal knowledge is knowledge of the self. When we encourage children to talk between each other and to share their ideas with each other, we're building up some interpersonal skills. By having those middle school-age children elaborate on their feelings and their motivations, we're also having them work on intrapersonal skills.
How can I tell if my middle school-age child is having trouble with intrapersonal skills?
Children who have trouble making up their mind about what they may want, choosing, making choices, and not really expressing their feelings much about things--they may say, "Oh, I don't know, I don't care, whatever you want, Mom." Or, "That's okay; it was okay that Jack wanted to do it that way so we went to that movie instead of the one I wanted to see." Children who really know themselves well will be assertive to a fair degree with their folks and with their peers.
How can I help my middle school-age child learn intrapersonal skills?
I think helping children to learn intrapersonal skills, needs to start early when we offer choices to our children, and that doesn't mean the choice between doing a chore or not doing a chore, but it might be a choice about when the chore will done or how the chore will be done. A choice about what movie that we're going to watch that night. Choices even right down to helping plan the dinner menus, or the menus for the week. The more we encourage our child to express themselves, and to know themselves, the more we will serve their intrapersonal knowledge.
What middle school lessons are meant to teach interpersonal skills?
Most experiences in a middle school help children with interpersonal skills. Of course, there must also be good teachers and mentors on the side encouraging children to collaborate and to work cooperatively towards solving common problems, whether that be in math class or in a group project in social studies. All of these activities help children to learn good interpersonal skills.
How can I tell if my middle school-age child is having trouble with interpersonal skills?
I think that there are two ways to tell if your middle school-age child has trouble with intrapersonal skills. They can be very mute and quiet and never talk about their relationships, and not have many friends. We would of course notice that fairly quickly. They could also be very complaining about their relationships. Children struggling with intrapersonal skills can have adversarial or acrimonious relationships with their friends they can bring to us, and we can know that they're having trouble getting along with their peers. Those would be some of the signs that we might look for in a middle school-age child.
How can I help my middle school-age child learn interpersonal skills?
You can help your child learn inter-personal skills by encouraging our children to talk problems out with their peers and with their friends, and then very importantly, we can model that type behavior with them. We can model that behavior with their peers, family, and with our spouses, and with our children themselves. We can encourage them to seek alternative solutions to problems, to seek out others when they can't solve a problem with their friends, and we can show them the good skills it takes to get along with others in the world.
