Customer Reviews

Teaching Social Skills to Youth, Second Edition

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The "Teaching Social Skills to Youth" book is the essential manual for sites using the Teaching Family Model for behavior modification with troubled and at-risk youth. The Teaching Family Model has been made famous by Father Flanigan's Girls and Boys Town.

Over 50 Teaching Family agencies in the United States and Canada are certified by the Teaching Family Association, who set the standards of service, ensuring effective and individualized treatment to youth. The Teaching Family Model has been researched and is a well-evaluated clinical practice, and uses an integrated set of procedures to help children, families, and dependent adults live, learn, and become increasingly self-sufficient.

This book is extremely effective when used with the teaching practices using the steps of 'Effective Praise', 'Preventive Teaching', and 'Corrective Teaching', and in conjunction with a token economy of privileges that provides rewards when youth use skills, and consequences when they do not use the skills. This combination, with a high ratio of praising interactions to corrective interactions creates an outstanding teaching atmosphere for effective behavior modification.

The first section of 'Teaching Social Skills to Youth' gives an overview of the Teaching Family Model components, and helps instruct you the best way to teach these skills. This is a very important aspect of helping youth learn to use these skills.

'Teaching Social Skills to Youth' has a wide variety of social, academic, independent living, and emotion regulation skills to choose from. The easy to use index groups skills by problem area, giving parents and treatment providers plenty of options to help target problem areas. The index is also grouped by situations.

Of most importance, reward your child when they choose to use a skill and act appropriate under circumstances when the child may normally act out in a negative way. This increases the benefit for the child to use the skill, and increases the chances for the child to use the skill in the future.

To learn more about the Teaching Family Model, visit TFA at www.teaching-family.org, and to find certified agencies near you. Some agencies also provide in-home interventions and parenting classes to help those families that struggle with troubled or at-risk youth.

This is a great resource for anyone in the mental health field or educational field trying to teach basic social skills to children and/or adolscents. As a mental health practitioner myself, I use this book daily either referring to it or actually going directly through the steps with clients and students that I work with in a school setting. The first eight skills are absolutely necessary for teaching the rest of the skills and are dealt with more in depth in: Basic Social Skills for Youth: A Handbook from Boys Town.

The Boys Town curriculum has a great deal of research to back it up and is used at a variety of mental health agencies. It is also very useful in conjunction with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and the thought process of practice and repeat. These skills have been very helpful in creating goals and monitoring progress.

If you are looking for pictures and scenarios, you may wan to check out The Social Skills Picture Book Teaching play, emotion, and communication to children with autism. It works for more than just autistic kids and would be a great suppliment to this book.

I'm currently living and working at a residential child-care facility that is based off of the Boys' and Girls' Town model of Family Teaching. We use this book every day w/ kids as young as a year and all the way through to graduation. It's simple and specific and helps make my job much easier. Every staff member and every youth is working from the same play book. We have a private school on our campus and the teachers there use this model as well.

This book is an easy to use tool that ensures that we are consistent with our expectations and that we are preparing the youth in our care for the world that is waiting for them. Some say it's too basic. For your average middle class, well adjusted kid- maybe it is. (I'd argue that it's not, but I'm trying to meet the negative reviewers half way.) But for hurting, abused, neglected kids that are taken from horrible conditions- sometimes you need to start with the absolute basics. I firmly believe that the skills this book teaches are fundamental to a healthy adult life. *I've* learned things from the book that have helped me have healthier friendships and relationships.

This book is not for everyone. It is probably best suited for programs like mine, and the one it came out of. Residential living programs are hard to run, and having this tool gives us structure, goals, consistency and clarity. As someone who USES this model in the manner it was intended, I can say it works. The book is a key element in the success of our program, and the success our youth have when they leave.

This book is one every parent and teacher should have on hand. Kids often miss out on these skills, and this makes it harder to know what to do in this world. This book will help give them confidence to survive in a world that seems to be forgetting the basics!

My only problem with this book is that the skills listed do not link to the scriptures in the Bible that these principles came from. Great book!

I expected this book to include ideas for how to teach the social skills, whether it be skits or stories or worksheets. Instead, the "worksheets" are just a bulleted list of what the social skill includes. There is no guide as to how it is recommended to teach the students them. Overall, I'm severely un-impressed with the book.

I'm a graduate student (Ph.D. level program) and was looking for materials I could use for references in my school psychology class. I also have a child with delayed social skills, so I had a more personal interest in looking at this book.

I found this book to be of little use, professionally as well as personally. The research was sorely lacking, and the tips and suggestions were fairly rudimentary and geared toward lower elementary school youth.

There are far better products out there, so save your money. I sent this one back.