The Effect of Training Based on Friends Model on the Social Skills of School-Age Children (6-10 Years Old)

Background:childhood is one of the most prominent periods in human life. attention to this period is sogreat that psychologists, experts and researchers in the field of education have consideredit as the most prominent stage in the development of human personality. one of the mostimportant achievements of childhood is the acquisition of social skills. it is essential thatchildren initiate and maintain desirable social interactions with peers, families, teachers, andindividuals within their community.materials and methods: in this experimental study, 60 children aged 6 to 10 years wererandomly selected from the schools of aliabad kotoul in 2019. the samples were dividedinto intervention and control groups by simple random method. group training was held forthe intervention group and control group received no intervention. before and one monthafter the intervention, the participants were asked to complete the questionnaires, whichincluded demographic questionnaire and matson’s social skills questionnaire. then, thecollected data were analyzed by spss-25 statistical software at a significance level of 0.05.results: in the intervention group, the mean score of social skills before the intervention was20.205+46.84 and after the intervention was 215.15 +15.36, and paired t-test did not showa significant difference in this regard (p<0.01). also, independent t-test did not show asignificant difference between the intervention and control groups in terms of the mean scoreof social skills before the intervention (p=0.78). independent t-test showed a significantdifference between the intervention and control groups after the intervention in terms of thedimensions of social behavior (p=0.03), authoritarianism (p=0.04) and relationship withpeers (p=0.009), but did not show a significant difference (p=0.1) between them in terms ofthe overall dimension. anova test also showed a significant difference (p<0.01) in thisregard, so that 26% of post-test changes could most likely be attributed to the independentvariable (friends training).conclusion: by increasing the social skills of parents and school-age children, children'sability to communicate with others, especially peers, improves. it also increases the child's interest in friends and group games. therefore, managers and officials of children educationcan use this educational program to promote proper social behavior in children and increasechildren's skills in socialization.