Teaching Social Skills at Home
and School: A National Model Program at the Preschool,
Elementary, and Middle School Levels

by Dr. Howard M. Knoff
Director, Project ACHIEVE

Dear Colleagues and Fellow Parents:

It is with pride and excitement that the Center for the Improvement of Child Caring (CICC) herein features the Stop and Think Programs for Teaching Preschool, Elementary and Middle School Children the social skills that are needed for school, home, and community success.

The Stop and Think Programs were created by Dr. Howard M. Knoff as part of a comprehensive school effectiveness, school improvement, and violence prevention process known as Project ACHIEVE. Over 15 years, Project ACHIEVE has proven so effective that it has been designated as a "Model Program" by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a “Promising Program” by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), and a “Key Model Program” by the Collaboration for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL).

Project ACHIEVE and the Stop and Think programs have been implemented in over 1,500 schools, districts, and/or communities, and entire states, like Arkansas, are implementing them through their Departments of Education in a comprehensive fashion. (See a more complete description of Project ACHIEVE below.)

As you will learn, the Stop and Think programs teach an effective, evidence-based approach to help children solve just about any social problem or challenge that they or adults supervising them confront. Indeed, the programs teach a wide range of very practical Survival, Interpersonal, Problem-Solving and Conflict Resolution skills.

There are two versions of Stop and Think. One is for parents to use in teaching children, and the other is for classroom teachers to use in preparing their preschool, elementary, and middle school students to learn and demonstrate these important and practical skills.

When both parents and teachers use Stop and Think, children are doubly benefited and best prepared for coping with the school, home, and life challenges they - and the rest of us - face on a daily basis.

Do take advantage of Stop and Think, and everything else Dr. Knoff has to offer for children, parents, and schools.

There have been many changes and challenges in our society over the past few years. At home, parents are trying to raise children in a confusing world of mixed messages, increasing diversity, and "prime-time" threats and traumas. At school, educators struggle to make schools safe and positive, when the focus is largely on academics and test scores. All of this has resulted in children who are not emotionally and socially prepared to respond to and meet these challenges.

Expanding briefly: The impact of television, the Internet and other mass media, the high rates of divorce and remarriage, having both parents in the workforce, significantly less adult supervision and feedback, and increases in poverty have all contributed to many children having poor or absent interpersonal, problem solving, and conflict resolution skills. Overall, this impacts their ability to relate to other children and to adults. This also affects their academic achievement because they come to school less prepared to fully participate in the schooling process.

Critically, parents and teachers are both reporting more discipline problems at home and school. Many parents know that they need to do something different at home, but they have not been taught the parenting skills that they need. Many teachers know that they need to teach children the essential behavioral skills for learning (e.g., Listening, Following Directions, Asking for Help, Ignoring Distractions), but they are told to focus only on academics.

If we do not teach our children and students how to cooperate, act responsibly, prevent conflicts, and demonstrate tolerance, however, the already high number of angry and aggressive students will increase as will the incidents of teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, and physical aggression. If we do not teach these important social skills, incidents of outright violence and loss of life--at home and at school- will only likely increase.

While we can say that parents are responsible for teaching social skills to their children, the reality is that schools must partner with parents in this important area. Thus, both parents and teachers need help in teaching children these skills, and they need a program that was designed for home and school. The Stop and Think Programs meet these needs. These Programs are evidence-based, child-tested, and adult-friendly and effective.

The Stop and Think Programs help parents and teachers to teach ten basic and ten advanced social skills at each of four developmental levels. The skills can be organized in four clusters:

Survival Skills - these are the most basic skills that are needed in order to be successful with all of the other skills that are taught. These skills lay the foundation for all other skills and include the social skills of:

• Listening
• Following Directions
• Using Nice Talk
• Using Brave Talk
• Rewarding Yourself
• Evaluating Yourself

Interpersonal Skills - these skills help children interact successfully and get along with siblings, peers, older and younger students, parents, teachers and other adults. Included here are the social skills of:

• Sharing
• Asking for Permission
• Joining an Activity
• Contributing to Discussions
• Answering Questions
• How to Interrupt
• How to Wait Your Turn
• How to Wait for Adult's Attention
• Beginning/Ending a Conversation
• Giving/Accepting Compliments

Problem Solving Skills - these skills help children to solve or prevent individual, interactive, peer, or classroom problems, and include the social skills of:

• Asking for Help
• Apologizing
• Accepting Consequences
• Setting a Goal
• Deciding What To Do
• Avoiding Trouble
• Understanding the Feelings of Others
• Responding to Failure

Conflict Resolution Skills - these skills help children to deal with highly emotional situations and to resolve existing intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts. Included here are the social skills of:

• Dealing with Teasing
• Dealing with Losing
• Dealing with Anger
• Walking Away from a Fight
• Dealing with Accusations
• Dealing with Being Left Out
• Dealing with Peer Pressure
• Dealing with Fear
• Dealing with the Anger of Others

The Stop and Think Social Skill Training program uses a five-step approach for teaching, reinforcing or using any of the social skills mentioned above. The five steps are:

• Stop and Think! This step is designed to condition children to take the time necessary to calm down and think about how they want to handle a situation.

• Are You Going To Make a Good Choice or a Bad Choice? This step provides children with a chance to decide what kind of choice they want to make. With help from parents and teachers, along with the meaningful positive and negative consequences for various choices, children decide to make a "Good Choice."

• What Are Your Choices or Steps? This step helps children to develop a specific plan before implementing a social skill. Here is where parents and teachers assist children by providing possible good choices or by actually teaching specific skills by breaking them into their component behavioral parts. This step helps children to "think before they act" — getting them ready to move into action...and

• Just Do It! Here is where children actually perform their "Good Choice" behavior. If the specific skill or choice works, great. If not, the child is either provided with additional choices by their parents or teachers, or they are taught a new skill to use. Sometimes, they are prompted to go over the steps of a previously taught skill to make sure they are using it properly. Once successful, it's on to the last step.

• The Good Job! step prompts children to reinforce themselves for successfully using a social skill and successfully responding to a situation or request. This step is important because children - and adults - do not always reinforce themselves for making good choices and doing a good job. Thus, this step teaches self-reinforcement.

Parents learn the program through the use of the Stop and Think Parenting Book: A Guide to Children's Good Behavior, accompanied by its 75 minute demonstration DVD, Teaching Children to Stop and Think at Home: A Parent's Guide to Teaching Good Behavior.

These two teaching tools can also be used by professionals, such as counselors, social workers, psychologists and prevention specialists, in leading parenting classes and seminars in the Stop and Think Program.

Guided by the book and DVD (and by a professional who is offering the program through their child's child care center, preschool, elementary school, community agency, or religious or civic group), parents learn the five-step Stop and Think approach, and how to teach the social skills to their preschool and/or elementary school children. Different suggestions are provided for teaching preschool, early, and late elementary school children, taking the child's level of development into consideration.

Parents learn how to introduce and practice the social skills so that the skills are performed by their children more and more successfully and automatically over time. They are specifically "coached" in the best ways to talk to their children, to motivate their children, and to stay consistent with their children - across different settings, situations, and circumstances.

The book also prompts them to watch one of the nine DVD segments that show real parents teaching their own children the Stop and Think process.

The book includes a calendar with guidelines and dates for teaching and reinforcing the social skills for up to a full year. It also includes forms that help parents to keep track of their children's progress, Cue Cards on which each skill is broken into its component behavioral steps, and Parenting Points to consider and keep in mind when teaching a specific skill.

Once again, given the developmental differences between younger and older children, there are separate Cue Cards and Parenting Points to use when teaching the skills to preschool and early elementary school children versus middle and late elementary school children.

This Stop & Think Program can be self-taught by parents who purchase the Book/DVD package or obtain it through their local schools or agencies. This Program also can be taught by professionals to parent groups using the same instructional package that the parents receive.

To obtain this instructional package, click here.

There are four age-specific Stop and Think programs for teachers and schools to use in teaching preschool through middle school children and adolescents these important social skills. There are separate instructional packages for use with:

PreKindergarten through First Grade Children

Grades 2 and 3

Grades 4 and 5

Grades 6 through 8

The skills are taught through a variety of role-playing and group activities, which are all explained in the Teacher's Manual for each program.

The instructional package for each program consists of a:

• Teacher's Manual written in a user-friendly fashion

• Reproducible Forms Book with almost 200 pages of skill steps, calendars, lesson plan forms, and teaching tools that all are reproducible

• 25 sets of 20 Cue Cards each that present the behavioral steps for the 10 core and 10 advanced skills at each developmental level

• 25 small Stop and Think stop signs

• 5 large posters that show each of the five steps of the Stop and Think teaching language

• One large Stop and Think stop sign

To obtain these instructional packages, click on the age group of your interest:

• PreK-1

• Grades 2-3

• Grades 4-5

• Grades 6-8

The award-winning Project ACHIEVE is a comprehensive, seven-component program for making schools more effective, for preventing violence, and increasing positive school climates. Its ultimate goal is to help design and implement effective school and schooling processes to maximize both the academic and social/emotional/behavioral progress and achievement of all students.

The seven components of Project ACHIEVE are:

1. Comprehensive Strategic and School Improvement Planning and Implementation

2. Effective Classroom Instruction, Teacher Support, and Professional Development/Supervision Processes

3. Academic Interventions including Consultation with Teachers for Students with Learning Difficulties

4. Positive Behavioral Support Systems: Discipline, Behavior Management, Student Self-Management, and Safe Schools

5. Functional Assessment and Data-based Problem Solving relative to Students' Responses-to-Intervention

6. Parent and Community Outreach

7. Formative and Summative Evaluation and Accountability

To explore bringing Project ACHIEVE with all of its components to your state, school district, school or community, click here and provide contact information.

Dr. Howard M. Knoff is the Director of Project ACHIEVE, author of the Stop and Think Social Skills Programs, and Director of the Arkansas Department of Education's School Improvement Grant which is funding the statewide implementation of Project ACHIEVE.

Dr. Knoff was previously Professor of School Psychology at the University of South Florida for 20 years and the Director of the School Psychology Program there for 12 years. His Ph.D. degree is from Syracuse University (1980), and he has worked since 1978 as a practitioner, consultant, licensed private psychologist, and university professor.

Dr. Knoff is widely respected for his research and writing on school reform and organizational change, consultation and intervention processes, social skills and behavior management training, personality assessment, and professional issues. He has published over 75 articles and book chapters, and delivered over 500 papers and workshops nationally. A recipient of the Lightner Witmer Award from the American Psychological Association's School Psychology Division in 1989 for early career contributions, and almost $4 million in external grants since 1990, he was the 21st President of the National Association of School Psychologists, which now represents over 20,000 school psychologists.

The Center for the Improvement of Child Caring (CICC) was founded in 1974 by Dr. Kerby T. Alvy and has grown to be one of the nation's largest and most productive nonprofit parenting and parenting education organizations. For more infomration about CICC's many programs, activities, products and services, go to www.ciccparenting.org, or call toll-free (800) 325-2422.

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