Interpersonal Skills

Human beings need opportunities to build and maintain positive relationships in all stages of life. Providing teens with opportunities to develop their interpersonal skills and a clear definition of what healthy relationships look and sound like is important to help ensure health development, physically, socially, and emotionally.

Grade Level: 6-12

Character Skills

Caring

SEL Skills

Self-Awareness
Relationship Skills

Academic Skills

Curiosity and Passion

Definitions

Caring

Be kind.
Be compassionate.
Express gratitude.
Forgive others.
Be considerate of others’ feelings.

Self-Awareness

Identify and understand emotions, values, attitudes, motivations, mindsets, and personal attributes.

Relationship Skills

Interpersonal and social skills to guide appropriate behavior and create positive relationships and meaningful connections .

Curiosity and Passion

Enthusiastic to understand more about themselves, others, and the world around them.

Learn more about our character, SEL, and academic outcomes.

Share This Activity

In this activity, students will explore the importance of connecting with others both for their own wellbeing and to maintain healthy friendships.

Instructions

Prompt students to think independently about the following questions. You may ask them to journal to start this activity. Ask students to share some of these initial thoughts and reflections.

- Who do you have a healthy, positive relationship within your life?
- What are qualities of those relationships that make them healthy and positive?
- How does this connection with this individual make you feel?

Define interpersonal skills – the things we do to interact and communicate with others. Explain that having strong interpersonal skills is important to maintaining strong friendships and connections with others. Ask students to brainstorm a list of interpersonal skills.
Pair students up and instruct them to analyze this article and/or infographic about connection and the impact it has on one’s health. Have them list 3-5 impacts that human connections have on health while they read with their partner.
As a whole group, discuss the following questions:
- What did you learn from the article/infographic?
- Why is human connection so important?
- How does social media impact your connection with others?
- How can you maintain healthy relationships with your friends?

Student Reflection

Compare and contrast the feelings/benefits of social media time with friends and in-person time with friends (you may consider using a Venn diagram as a strategy for comparing and contrasting in this reflection).
What interpersonal skills do you consider a strength? What skills can you develop more?
How will you intentionally connect with others this week?