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What would you do?
Four square at recess
At recess, some kids are playing four square. You want to play too.
- 1. Start the conversation (now)
- 2. Keep it going
- 3. End it well
A new student, Maya, sits next to you in art class. She is drawing a dog.
How do you start?
The conversation so far
Your lines and Maya's answers will show up here.
Ideas for this step
- Say hi and your name.
- Notice something you both can see.
- Ask an easy question.
Score: 0
Look at the eyebrows, eyes and mouth.
Round 1 of 10
What might this face be feeling?
Face clues: Eyes curved up, a big open smile, rosy cheeks.
My practice card
Add "Try saying" lines and finished conversations here. At the end, print the card or copy it, so there is something to practice this week.
Nothing here is saved or sent anywhere. It is gone when you close the page.
An educational aid to use with a therapist, teacher or parent. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose anything.
Social skills games for kids and teens
Three games, each with a kids version and a teen version. Pick Kids or Teens at the top right, then choose a game.
- What would you do? Thirty-six scenario cards across six skills: joining in, disagreeing kindly, online conflict, sharing, apologizing and reading body language. Pick a choice, see what might happen next, talk it over and practice a line.
- Conversation practice. Build a conversation one step at a time: start it, keep it going, end it well. Each step offers three things to say, with what might happen if you said them. At the end, the whole conversation is laid out as a script to read aloud.
- Body language. Ten rounds of guessing a feeling from a face, or from a description of someone's body and voice. Every answer comes with the clues to look for and something kind to say.
Any "Try saying" line and any finished conversation can go on a practice card. Print it or copy it at the end of the session, so the client leaves with something to try that week.
How to play "What would you do?"
- Choose a skill to work on, or leave it on All skills.
- Read the situation aloud. Ask the client what they would really do before looking at the choices.
- Pick a choice. Every choice then shows what might happen next, and one is marked "Most likely to help."
- Use the Talk about it questions. Ask what else could work, too.
- Role-play the Try saying line. Then add it to the practice card if it is worth keeping.
The honest answer is often the less helpful choice, and that is useful. "I'd probably just leave" tells you more than a right answer picked to please the therapist. Thank them for it, and ask what would happen next.
Social skills activities for teens
Teens can tell when a game is trying to teach them a lesson. The teen deck is built on situations they recognize: a group chat pile-on, a one-letter text reply, being left on read, a party they do not want to go to, getting no credit for their own idea. A few ways to keep it real:
- Invite them to argue with the "Most likely to help" choice. If they have a better answer, they are right to say so.
- Ask them to rewrite the Try saying line in their own words. A line they would never say out loud is no use.
- Have them write a card about a situation from their own week, with three choices. Then play it.
- Use conversation practice before something they are dreading: a first shift, a family event, a new class.
Social skills games for kids
- Keep it short: three or four cards is plenty for a young child.
- Act out each choice with toys or puppets, so they can see what happens instead of only hearing it.
- Praise good thinking, not just picking the marked answer. "You noticed how she might feel" is worth saying.
- Play the body language game with Faces first. Body and voice clues are harder, because they are read, not seen.
- Pair it with our emotion games for kids, since naming feelings comes before reading them in others.
Using it in a social skills group
Read a card aloud and have everyone vote by holding up fingers for A, B or C. Then ask someone from each side to say why. Pairs can role-play the conversation scripts, then swap parts. The body language game works well as a team game: two teams take turns, and the clues give everyone something to talk about after each round.
Using it over telehealth
- Open the page before the session and choose Kids or Teens.
- Share your screen and press Present mode to show the game in large print.
- Read each card aloud, and let the client tell you which choice to pick.
- For role-play, you read the other person's lines, then swap.
- At the end, print or copy the practice card and send it to the client or a parent, if that fits your setting.
How social skills are usually taught
Most social skills programs follow the same few steps: explain the skill, show it, practice it in a role-play, give feedback, and then try it in real life. These games cover the first four. The practice card is for the fifth, which is where the skill actually grows.
Many children and teens who work on social skills in therapy are autistic, have ADHD or have social anxiety. The point is not to make anyone act like everyone else. It is to give them more options, a better guess at how others might react, and words ready for the moments that are hard for them.
If friendships, group settings or conflict are a regular struggle, a therapist can help. Crown Counseling offers counseling for teens and therapy for children in Brooklyn and by video.
Printable social skills worksheets (PDF)
The free PDF has four pages: six "What would you do?" cards for kids and six for teens, one for each skill; a social skills worksheet for planning a hard situation and looking back on how it went; and a conversation toolkit with lines for starting, keeping up and ending a conversation, plus a table of common body language clues. It is free to print and share.
