Your child may find him or herself as a leader for a group project in the class or as the leader for a game of soccer at recess time.  Regardless of the situation, your child will need the appropriate leadership skills in order to effectively socialize with peers.  If your child has a history of not being a good leader (e.g. bossy and mean) you may want to consider having a discussion at home.

     If your child is leading a group project in class it would be a good idea to go over the attributes of a good leader.  Make it clear to your child that a good leader is fair and has to follow the rules.  Quite often, teachers will give each student in a group a specific job.  If that is the case, tell your child that he or she has to follow the teacher’s guidelines.  Your child’s job, as leader, is to make sure that everyone else is doing his or her job.  Make it very clear to your child that this does not mean that he or she should be bossy (you might want to model the difference between delegating a job as opposed to bossiness to your child).  Your child should also be aware of the fact that if everyone in the group decides on their role, your child’s job is to respect the other children by listening and being fair if possible (again, you may want to model this type of situation at home).

     Your child may also find him or herself in charge of the soccer game at recess time.  Try to reinforce similar ‘leader’ characteristics to your child.  With this situation though, make it clear to your child that this situation will dictate future social interactions.  That is, if your child is unfair (i.e. making teams or rules), other kids won’t want to play with him in the future.  Discuss with your child how to be fair if he or she is the leader of a game or activity.  Ask your child how he or she would feel if someone else was the leader and made teams and rules that your child didn’t like.

     Finally, remember to let your child know that if he or she is a fair leader, the other kids won’t mind if your child is the leader again sometime whereas if your child is an unfair leader, other kids will play with someone else in the future.

     You may want to consider letting your child be the ‘leader’ for a specific family outing (e.g. dinner and a movie night).  This will allow you to monitor your child’s leadership skills (i.e. he may be bossy, she might not listen to suggestions) and correct them if need be.