Social skills are generally considered to be good, but they often take the form of learning how to form cliques.
As Christians who want to try to create a positive social environment for ourselves and non-Christians alike, it is important for us to recognize that not all social skills are positive and to teach people from a young age about social skills that reflect values such as the Golden Rule.
Christians, social skills is a topic generally considered in a positive light, but many of the social skills people develop from a young age tend not to be conducive to a positive social environment. From a young age, the social skills people develop often involve learning how to form cliques for self-centered purposes that keep others out and put others down. As Christians who want to try to create a positive social environment for ourselves and non-Christians alike, it is important for us to recognize that not all social skills are positive and to teach people from a young age about social skills that reflect values such as the Golden Rule.
Christian parents and people in other roles that help teach young people about Christianity can help young Christians understand positive social skills by starting with the idea that they involve a willingness and ability to communicate with people with both shared and different interests and not the exclusion of others for social status. This certainly doesn’t mean someone can’t have a group of close friends, but that is not the same as forming cliques that ignore others and talk about them unfairly. It helps to let a young person know the value of positive social skills by asking them to think about how they would feel if they were unfairly ignored by a group of people for a superficial reason such as wanting to feel more important.
Even among older adults, social skills can often take the form of ignoring others, including particularly polite and friendly people, for self-centered reasons. This is why positive social skills is also a good discussion topic and learning focus for a general audience of both younger and older Christians. It is also a good discussion topic and learning focus for Christians and non-Christians alike.
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