As our children will be returning to school, leaving the joyful, long, hot summer days of leisure activities, digital games, and sometimes endless hours on social media, community educators and researchers have been actively involved in developing many primary intervention programs designed to promote positive and prosocial behaviors. They are trying to educate us on the growing need to create purposefully and intentionally-taught social skills needed for our children in order to foster positive social relationships, promote emotional wellness, character development, and ultimately, achieve overall satisfaction with life.
These positive and prosocial behaviors may help our children have better peer relationships, navigate potential peer conflicts, be more competent and able to cope with stress, becoming more responsive and setting challenging/fulfilling goals, and higher school achievement. Positive social skill-building activities will hopefully become life-long lessons that will enable our children to do good things, feel better about themselves, have healthier lives, and ultimately, improve the health of others in our communities.