Parents come to me and say “I have an anti-social child”.
Most parents understand something very important about life: children with good social skills tend to be happier and more successful.
It begins early in childhood. The children who learn how to connect, communicate, and build friendships often grow into adults who find relationships easier, handle challenges better, and even live longer.
In fact, researchers have been studying the connection between social skills and well-being for decades. Psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad (2010) conducted a large study examining social relationships and health outcomes. She found that people with strong social connections had a 50% higher chance of living longer compared to those who were socially isolated.
That’s huge.
But what happens when you have an anti-social child?
What if your child prefers to stay alone, struggles to connect with others, or avoids social situations altogether?
Before we panic, we need to understand something very important.
Social skills exist on a spectrum.
Understanding the Social Skills Spectrum
Some children seem to walk into a room and instantly make friends. They are talkative, funny, charming, and relaxed around others.
Other children prefer quiet activities, fewer interactions, or struggle to start conversations.
On one side of the spectrum, you might find the anti-social child. On the other side are children who seem to get along with everyone.
And most children?
They sit somewhere in the middle.
Social skills are not something children are born with. They are a language we learn.
Ronit Baras
Just like language, social skills develop with practice, exposure, and modeling.
Social Skills Are the Language of Connection
Think of social skills like learning French, Spanish, or Chinese.
Nobody expects a child to speak fluent French without hearing it, practicing it, and making mistakes along the way.
Yet somehow, many parents assume children should naturally know how to make friends.
But social skills are exactly the same as language. We teach them phrase by phrase. Connection by connection.
Our role as parents is simply to teach the next phrase in the language of relationships.
- First phrase: saying hello.
- Second phrase: sharing toys.
- Third phrase: asking questions.
- Fourth phrase: listening.
And there is no limit to how much we can learn.
Common anti-social behaviours in children
Let’s learn about what anti-social behaviour looks like. Below is a list of the most common ones.
- Frequent lying – regularly telling lies to avoid responsibility or manipulate situations.
- Stealing – taking things that don’t belong to them (from peers, family, or stores).
- Aggression toward others – hitting, kicking, biting, pushing, or threatening.
- Bullying – repeatedly intimidating, humiliating, or excluding other children.
- Deliberate rule-breaking – ignoring rules at school or home even when they understand them.
- Destroying property – damaging toys, furniture, school property, or others’ belongings.
- Cruelty to animals – intentionally hurting animals or showing no concern for their suffering.
- Lack of empathy – not showing concern when others are hurt or upset.
- Blaming others for their actions – refusing responsibility and shifting blame.
- Frequent temper outbursts – extreme anger disproportionate to the situation.
- Manipulating peers or adults – using guilt, threats, or deception to control situations.
- Refusing to cooperate – constant defiance or refusal to participate in normal social expectations.
A few important notes:
- One behaviour alone doesn’t mean a child is antisocial. Many children occasionally lie or break rules. Remember, it is like learning a language. You don’t always get the words right.
- It becomes more concerning when the behaviours are frequent, persistent, and harmful to others.
As a special education professional, I can tell you that often these behaviours are signals of unmet needs (stress, trauma, attention difficulties, family conflict, emotional regulation problems), so don’t focus on the behaviour, focus on the need. (but that’s a topic for another post)
Where Social Skills Really Begin
Humans are born social creatures. A newborn baby depends completely on connection with their mother for survival. But something interesting happens during those early months.
The baby watches.
The baby observes.
The baby learns.
The way mom interacts with the world becomes the baby’s first social lesson. If mom talks to friends, laughs with family, welcomes visitors, and enjoys people, the baby absorbs that message:
People are good.
Connection is safe.
Relationships are normal.
But if mom is isolated, avoids social contact, or struggles socially, the baby simply has fewer examples to learn from.
This doesn’t mean the mother is not loving. She can be the most caring parent in the world. But without social interaction around the child, the baby has limited exposure to the language of connection.
Why Family Alone Is Not Enough
Some people believe a child can learn all social skills within the family.
I disagree.
Family relationships operate under a completely different dynamic.
Family members stay family forever, even when we argue, disagree, or distance ourselves. Friends, classmates, and colleagues are different. They come and go. They require way more negotiation, compromise, and adaptability.
First, it really matters how big your family is.
When a child grows as a single child, he has much less connections to practice than having a sibling and it is easy to do the math when this child has 3 siblings or more. That’s the main reason we recommend families bring more than one child (if possible) and this is why we encourage children to go to a playgroup, family day care of any day care system when there are many other kids.
A child who only practices relationships inside the family may struggle when entering the larger social world.
That’s why exposure to different people and personalities is essential to managing anti-social behavior
The Honest Parenting Question
Over the years, working with thousands of families, I noticed something interesting.
Very often, when a child struggles socially, one of the parents also struggles with social skills.
This isn’t criticism. It’s simply awareness. Children learn by copying.
So, I often ask parents a very simple question:
If social skills were measured from 1 to 100, where would you place yourself?
I don’t encourage self-criticism and self-blame or even a quest to find the source, but I encourage awareness. Most people who are low on that scale are people who didn’t get a good example for it.
Don’t blame yourself. Don’t feel bad. Just to become aware.
I’m a very good example of how awareness can change your life… forever.
Children don’t do what we say. They do what we do.
Ronit Baras
My Personal Social Skills Wake-Up Call
I actually had this realization myself when I was 16. If social skills were measured from 1 to 100, I would have been around 10. Maybe even less. And when I looked honestly at my childhood, I understood why. My mother was anti-social. She never had social skills and sadly, she was my example.
She had one friend when she was younger, but when we moved to towns, she never kept that relationship.
If she had challenges, she had no one to talk to. (She couldn’t read and write so she couldn’t even journal her feelings…)
She believed friends were not trustworthy.
Even today, at 86 years old, she still feels that way.
So naturally, she was my example.
It was a wake-up call to stand in front of the mirror and realize that I just don’t have social skills.
For years, I always had a “best friend,” but we were “outsiders,” and it only supported the illusion that “I’m friendly.” I wasn’t!
Kids who are friendly get along with many kids.
Kids who have social skills are able to talk to anyone
Kids who are highly sociable manage changes easily
Kids who are high on the social skills spectrum are more confident
I wasn’t!
I didn’t blame my mum for it but realized that her own mum, my grandmother, was exactly the same. My grandmother had no friends, and she wasn’t nice or kind, even within the family.
Instead of failing into the same cycle, I have decided to change it.
I promised myself I would learn social skills deliberately.
And I did.
Within about six months, I moved from around 10 to about 90 on that scale. That was over 45 years ago. And I have stayed there ever since.
From being anti-social child, I have become a very social, friendly person. Trust me, life is much simpler and easier when you shift from being anti-social.
Even more importantly, my children grew up naturally around that level too. Because they learned the language of connection early and it even impacted the next generation.
Last week, my husband and I took my 9-year-old granddaughter to meet our friends who had a son her age. Another friend came with 2 teenagers, 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl and those 4 kids played for 6 hours together without the adult’s intervention even once.
The First Two Foundational Tips
You know now that you can be born to a parent, who is anti-social and still be social, but I think prevention is the place to start.
Before anything else, there are two important foundations to help prevent raising an anti-social child.
Avoid isolation after birth
Make sure the mother is surrounded by people: friends, family, playgroups, park conversations, visitors at home.
The baby learns social interaction by watching it happen.
Mothers, surround yourself with people!
Why?
Because you spend most of the time with your children. Become a model.
Improve your own social skills
Children copy behaviors more than they follow instructions.
If we improve our own connection skills, children automatically learn.
This is true for all parents, mothers and fathers alike.
The good news is that any improvement parents make is shown on kids’ behavior. You won’t believe how many kids I help with seeing their parents only.
14 Practical Tips to Help an Anti-Social Child
Below are several tips that will shift from anti-social child to a friendly child and improve your child’s social skills. These tips help children practice social interaction naturally.
Remember, this is something we need to constantly learn. Make sure you practice what you preach.
Choose schools with enough children
Research shows that groups of around 15 children and a good mix of genders create enough diversity in personalities for social learning.
Psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) emphasized that children develop many social and cognitive abilities through interaction with peers.
Encourage hobbies with other children
Sports, music groups, art classes, dance, robotics.
Hobbies give children a shared interest, which makes conversation easier. It also teaches them to get along with others who might not be the same gender, age, culture…
Host playdates
Inviting children to your home teaches children to host, share toys, and share attention.
Teach “people watching”
Observing social interactions helps children learn group dynamics before participating.
Ask them questions like:
- What do you think those kids are talking about?
- Who seems to be leading the game?
- Who looks left out?
Observation builds awareness.
Arrive early in new environments
Entering an empty room is less intimidating than entering a crowded one.
Children feel more confident when they get familiar with the environment first.
Teach children to introduce themselves
Many children desperately want to play together but are simply afraid to start the conversation.
A simple phrase works wonders:
“Hi, my name is __. Can I play with you?”
This tiny skill changes everything.
(I teach teens in high schools to introduce themselves as part of their leadership training. It is amazing how simple it is once they learn to do it and how much they feel they missed out for not learning it earlier)
Teach genuine politeness
Politeness is part of the language of connection. But forcing a child to say “thank you” is not politeness. It’s obedience.
Politeness must come from understanding appreciation. Teach children that being polite is in fact expressing their appreciation or being grateful. It must be genuine for it to work.
Never compare your child to others
When compare our children negatively to others (siblings, friends, ourselves when we were their age) we are telling our child that He/she is not good enough, that we are disappointed in him/her that he needs to change in order to satisfy our needs.
That’s not developing a social skill but developing anti-social skill because “others” are a source of pain.
Instead, help your child grow from where they are. Help them realize they have many strengths and they can use them to overcome any challenge. (no matter what, don’t become that challenge!)
Focus on fun, not winning
Excessive competitiveness can lead to anti-social behavior.
Children who must win at all costs struggle to maintain friendships.
Teach your children that winning is not part of the language of connection.
Teach children about bullying
Bullying is the opposite of connection. If being friendly is good, bullying is anti-social.
Explain that bullying usually comes from weakness and insecurity, not strength and encourage your children to stay away from bullies.
Teach listening skills
Listening is one of the most powerful social skills.
People feel valued when someone truly listens. Generally, teach children to speak less in company of others and be active listeners.
Teach flexibility
Help your child realize there are many ways to solve problems.
4 + 2 equals 6.
But so does 3 + 3.
Or 5 + 1.
Children who understand this become more tolerant of different ideas.
Practice kindness
Ask children daily:
“What act of kindness did you do today?”
Kindness builds self-esteem and friendships.
Kindness is the most powerful social skill a child can learn.
Ronit Baras
Teach curiosity about others
Encourage children to ask questions. Questions are a wonderful way to connect and again, make sure the questions are genuine int erst. People naturally like those who show interest in them. (I highly recommend you as a parent to learn the art of asking questions)
Reflection for Parents
Ask yourself:
- What social skills does my child already have?
- Which ones can we practice this month?
- What example am I giving daily?
- I promise that just answering those questions to yourself, will being much clarity if you are trying to manage an anti-social child. Small improvements create big changes.
The Good News About Anti-Social Children
Children are incredibly adaptable. With the right guidance, practice, and exposure, social skills can grow at any age.
Even an anti-social child can develop into a confident, socially capable adult.
The key ingredient is practice.
And patience.
Lots of patience.
Social confidence is not something children are born with. It’s something they practice.
Ronit Baras
If you’d like more parenting tools, you can explore additional articles on Family Matters, with strategies for better communication, parenting and family relationships.
And if you’re ready to take the next step and work more deeply on building strong family dynamics, check out the coaching programs at Be Happy in LIFE.
Because raising confident children starts with empowered parents.
Good luck,
Ronit
