ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how social skills are the appropriate behaviors for interacting and connecting with others, and that children learn and practice these important skills, they learn the social standards and expectations of the culture they live in. The importance of healthy social skills in order for infants and toddlers to effectively develop skills in cognition, language, emotion and even self-esteem and physical skills is explained. The connection between socialization and attachment is also described. Emphasis is placed on the importance of infants interacting with sensitive and responsive adults in order to learn how to send and interpret emotional signals that they will then use in their first social interactions with peers and other adults.
