Social skills or sport this fall?

[Anonymous]

Definitely soccer. You said he loves it. There is your answer. Team sports are great for social skills. If he did not enjoy it, the answer would be different. Find a different group for social skills that doesn’t conflict with the soccer you know he already loves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would really try to make both work even if its a different soccer team. They will feed on each other; he learns the ideas in class and puts them in practice with the team and vice versa. Having a real life social skills environment parallel to a clinical class will help it make sense.

There’s very scanty evidence that social skills can be taught that way, if any. That’s not to say OP shouldn’t try out a social skills class - but truly there is not enough benefit to it to do a lot of gymnastics with the schedule. 7 is also probably too young to learn social skills from a didactic adult-led approach. Now that my kid is a teen I can sort of see how social skills instruction might benefit him - the same way NT adults like advice on things like “how to get ahead at work” and “how to make friends” But at 7, no. The main function of social skills classes/groups was to interact with other kids, which OP’s kid will do in soccer, and get lots of health and leisure benefits as as well.

[Anonymous]

Do soccer. These social skill classes are held in other places if you really want to put your child in that.

[Anonymous]

I would do soccer and look for opportunities to give him guidance/ suggestions on interacting with teammates and coach. For example if he usually talks while coach talks or not good at taking turns, you can find subtle ways to point this out to him and role play what to do different next time. In the meantime you can look for a different social group if still needed.