To determine if you're correct, let's analyze the options given and consider the best strategy for encouraging social competence with a group of school-age children.
A. Reassuring the students about positive behavior: This option involves providing positive reinforcement and encouragement to children for displaying good social skills. It focuses on recognizing and reinforcing desired behaviors, which is an effective strategy for promoting social competence.
B. Punishing students for antisocial behavior: Punishment alone is not usually the most effective strategy for fostering social competence. While consequences may be necessary for addressing inappropriate behavior, using punishment as the primary approach can create a negative environment and fail to teach children the desired social skills.
C. Using external rewards: While external rewards, such as stickers or treats, can be useful for motivating certain behaviors, they may not be the most effective long-term strategy for developing genuine social competence. Relying solely on rewards can lead to children only engaging in positive behavior for the sake of the reward, rather than internalizing the value of social competence.
D. Modeling good social skills: This option involves adults or authority figures demonstrating positive social behaviors for children to observe and learn from. Modeling is an important method for teaching social skills and can be highly effective in combination with other strategies.
Considering the options, it can be concluded that option A, reassuring the students about positive behavior, is a strong strategy for encouraging social competence with a group of school-age children. It focuses on positive reinforcement and encouragement, which can help foster a supportive and nurturing environment for social growth.