The Social Skills Game

📖 The Scoop

The Social Skills Game is a lively and exciting therapeutic board game for children and adolescents who experience difficulties with relationships, and enables them to explore and reflect upon adaptive interaction styles. The game addresses behavioural responses, cognitive processes, belief systems, interactive processes, verbal and nonverbal communication, and assertiveness. The focus of the game is on a positive group experience and is non-threatening.

The game will allow children to explore adaptive interaction styles within a safe group and helps them to improve self-concept, whilst encouraging the generalisation of behaviour into other settings. The game comprises game board, counters, dice and four sets of colour-coded cards arranged in categories corresponding to coloured shapes on the board. Age range 6-14 years but it is possible to adapt the game for adults with a mild learning disability. The game is intended for group work with a maximum of six players.

`The Social Skills Game has been developed for children and adolescents who experience difficulties with relationships. It is non-threatening and focuses on a positive and fun group experience. It enables participants to explore adaptive interaction styles within a safe environment...and] enables players to discuss difficult issues in a non-threatening environment; it stimulates discussion and is fun. By adapting some of the social situations it would be quite easy to use the game with adults with mild learning disabilities. It helped to highlight specific areas of strength and needs which could then be addressed separately. This game is a useful and fun tool for use within a social skills training group. Our clients enjoyed the group.'
- OTPLD

`This game is genuinely fun-the best educational game I have come across. Both groups of nine-year-olds I played it with (one already socially skilled, the other much less so) said I had to say in my review that it is a brilliant game...The game is relatively cheap, goes on forever and there are other games available in the same series.'
- British Psychodrama Association

`A colourful board game designed to help children come to terms with both everyday and difficult situations and to express and communicate their feelings to others. The therapeutic element has been well researched and the game would be a practical tool for anyone working with children and adolescents who are experiencing problems in relating to the people around them.'
- Play Matters

`I play this with a group of autistic children (12-14 years) and we have a good time as well as improving our social skills.'
- Speech and Language Therapy in Practice

`[Would be] particularly helpful if you are wanting to set up a group to explore feelings and would welcome some help on where to start.'
- SNIP

`This book enables the players to discuss difficult issues in a non-threatening environment; it stimulates discussion and is fun. By adapting some of the social situations it would be quite easy to use the game with adults with mild learning disabilities. It helped to highlight specific areas of strength and needs which could then be addressed separately. This game is a useful and fun tool for use within a social skills training group. Our clients enjoyed the group.'
- OTPLD Newsletter

Lifegames is a series of therapeutic board games for children and adolescents, devised to facilitate the understanding and disclosure of the complex feelings experienced by children and adolescents when they are confronted with traumatic life events.

Each game has been carefully developed utilising an integrative psychotherapy model, which incorporates systemic, cognitive-behavioural, humanistic and psychodynamic orientations. The games address factual issues and focus on emotional expression, belief systems, cognitive processes, behavioural responses, relationships, fantasies, memories and dreams. They provide a safe, boundaried space where children and adolescents may explore their inner feelings, and can be used to answer questions which children may have been afraid to ask.

Designed to be flexible, the games can be tailored towards the pace of the therapeutic process. They may be used with groups and with individuals and they should always be played with a therapist. The recommended age range for participants is 6-16 years, although it is possible for the clinician to adapt games for working with younger or older children. Where appropriate, the therapist may participate as a co-player or remain solely in the role of facilitator.

Genre: Psychology / General (fancy, right?)