Click on “Sign up Today” to see cost, duration, and location for these groups. Groups will be separated by age and developmental level.

Positive social relationships offer a critical buffer against stress and psychological difficulties. Rejection by peers is devastating to children and can be associated with such long-term problems as low self-esteem, poor academic performance, feelings of aloneness and loneliness, and even juvenile delinquency.

Building Blocks follows a step-by-step approach to teach children of elementary and early middle school age how to make and maintain friends, as well as how to increase the child’s awareness of the impact of his or her behavior on other children and adults.

This ten to twelve-week program will focus on the following social skills, with each skill building on the next:

• Listening, communication and conversation skills
• Expressing thoughts and feelings effectively and appropriately
• Learning impulse control
• Building self-esteem
• Developing empathy
• Learning to manage anger and cope with things that are unfair
• Problem solving skills
• Assertiveness
• Team work