LTC Playgroup: Learning To Cope…Learning To Cooperate…

Playgroup for 2nd through 4th graders

The LTC Playgroup is designed for children who have difficulty with more advanced social skills, beyond the basics of sharing and taking turns. As children develop, the necessary social-emotional skills become much more sophisticated. Perhaps your child attended a social skills group in the past and mastered those skills but now is confronted with more challenging social interactions or perhaps your child sailed through early elementary but is starting to lag behind in social maturity. Either profile will benefit from the LTC Playgroup. Children at this age still typically bond through play and activities (versus pure conversation), which is why our focus is on a more sophisticated approach to play interactions. Children also are required to be a friendly and productive participant in larger group activities and projects, which is why we include more of these types of interactions in the LTC curriculum.

Curriculum

In the LTC curriculum, your child will learn:

emotional recognition/regulation
self-esteem building
cooperative work and play in larger groups (3+ children)
advanced skills for joining groups of children at play and/or conversation
good sportsmanship skills-handling both losing AND winning
coping skills/relaxation skills to calm down when overly excited, anxious or frustrated
anger management/increased frustration tolerance-how to stick with it even when it’s challenging
improved communication skills (verbal and nonverbal)
reading social cues and perspective-taking

An example activity is our Paper Tower activity. Children are placed into groups of 3-4 children and given a stack of paper only (no glue, tape, or scissors). Their goal is to build the highest tower out of the paper as they can. It’s a competition–the team with the highest tower wins. This activity allows children to work on social communication (the opinionated children must listen to everyone’s ideas and the unassertive children are required to give an idea or opinion–all in ways everyone can understand), sportsmanship (there will be a loser and the clock is ticking…), emotion regulation (it is a frustrating task–the paper always falls over at the worst possible moment), cooperation (you can only have ONE tower) and perspective taking (what it feels like being each team member plus the winning and losing teams). With a group debrief at the end, we are able to process everyone’s thoughts and feelings plus compare this to situations that come up for these kids in other settings. And don’t worry, we up-cycle the paper afterwards!

Although it is important for us to teach your child these social and emotional skills, it is also important that you know how to reinforce them at home. Included in the cost of the program are periodic parent education sessions on a variety of social skills topics plus email updates specific to your child’s group. Included in the emailed curriculum updates are advice and techniques designed to propel social-emotional development forward not just in our playroom, but in home and school environments as well. The more parents can reinforce the skills at home, the more effective the intervention will be.

Is the LTC Playgroup right for my child?

Does your child need help in larger groups or with emotion regulation? Is your child a COMPASS graduate and you would like him or her to continue to advance his or her social skills? Specifically, does your child have difficulties joining larger groups of children at play (three or more)? Does your child become frustrated when things do not go his or her way in work or play situations with other children? Does your child have a difficult time accepting constructive criticism from other children during work or play situations? Does your child have difficulty recognizing emotions in others and him or herself? Does s/he express emotion appropriately? Does your child ever display poor sportsmanship, either by bragging, cheating, or being the “rule-enforcer”? Does your child seem tense and uptight? Does your child have difficulty getting his ideas across during work or play with other children? Does your child have difficulty listening to or understanding other children’s ideas? Does your child have difficulty reading social cues, such as knowing when other children get annoyed or getting other children’s jokes? Do you wish your child knew how special and unique he or she was and had more self-confidence in social situations?

The LTC Playgroup addresses all these difficulties with activities designed to engage the children through sociodramatic play, art activities, storytelling, and constructive play. Dr. Rich draws from hundreds of activities so that children will continue to enjoy the group regardless of the length of their attendance. The curriculum for each session is uniquely designed depending upon the composition of the group, ensuring that your child will receive maximum benefit.

Please read the information on our main group page to learn more about what makes our social skills groups unique and why your search is over for the perfect group for your child.