Program

Social skills are an integral part of all interpersonal situations. The ability to build and maintain meaningful relationships with family and friends, authority figures, peers, and society at large leads to increased happiness and greater levels of interpersonal connectedness. At Professor Peaches we teach children the core principles that underlie strong social skills such as, how to be honest and authentic while also being tactful and respectful, and the value of embracing an open and positive outlook. Additionally, we help build confidence and competence with initiating, maintaining and concluding conversations across a range of different scenario settings. Mastering how to appropriately and effectively relate in a wide range of social settings is an invaluable asset that will help children flourish throughout life.

Confidence is key! Confidence in one’s communication abilities is gained through mastery of verbal and non-verbal skills. Believing in yourself and your interpersonal and presentational skills allows individuals to take advantage of opportunities and challenges that are often too anxiety provoking for people with low confidence. At Professor Peaches, we enhance children’s confidence by developing their understanding of what components make someone a strong communicator and by practicing these skills, making them second nature for the child. Building confidence in communication abilities from a young age helps to expand children’s horizons and creates a bright future.

From bargaining to reaching resolutions, from securing favorable outcomes to creating common ground between people, strong negotiating skills are extremely important. Our first experience with negotiating begins as children. Communication with parents, friends, and teachers creates this early formative stage that sets the direction for negotiation abilities. Unfortunately, the reality is that later in life most people do not negotiate or do not know how to negotiate effectively. At Professor Peaches we work with children to develop and hone their negotiation skills and build their confidence to be effective negotiators in the real world.

Having a conversation with one individual requires a different skillset than speaking with a group of 5 or 15 people. Casual compared to formal conversations look and feel very different from one another and call on separate abilities. Additionally, conversational skills have unique differences from presentational skills. Further still, presenting to one person is very different than presenting to 20 people, which is very different than presenting to 200 people. At Professor Peaches, we teach children how the size and context of the situation affects how they present themselves and their message. Being proficient in social interactions across both small to large and formal to informal settings allows children to be ready for and succeed in any interpersonal situation they encounter.

A strong presentation leaves the audience wanting more! While the topic of a presentation can help set the audience’s interest level, people with polished presentation skills can make any subject interesting and exciting to view. The key component to being an incredible presenter lies within how the person presents both themself and the information. At Professor Peaches we teach children the tools to become great presenters by developing fundamental skills including speaking with emotion and inflection, using engaging body language and hand gestures, displaying strong eye contact, and incorporating appropriate humor or lightness into the presentation. Having the ability to present effectively helps children excel both in the classroom and in their professional paths later in life.

Non-verbal communication covers a wide range of areas that do not actually involve speaking, such as body posture and gestures, facial expression, eye contact, and listening. An individual’s non-verbal cues greatly impact how others perceive and relate to that person. At Professor Peaches we teach children how to seamlessly integrate effective non-verbal skills into their day-to-day communication style. When mastered, these skills help transform one’s communication abilities, taking them to a higher level.