Keep those lines of communication with your kids open- even when it's tough!
@nautilusbehavioral
Click here for a printable version of this post. Have your kids ever come to you when they’re having problems with friends? Are you ever concerned about your kids’ friendships? Many of the kids Sarah and I work with have difficulties with some aspect of their social relationships. What’s interesting is that their parents—even socially savvy parents--are often at a loss about how to help them. A lot of their uncertainty stems from the fact that social problems are not as straightforward to address and parents getting directly involved is typically not the best solution. Does this conundrum sound familiar? So, what do you do? Instead of viewing yourself as your kid’s champion, consider yourself as your kids’ coach- not on the field, but in the social arena. (I do love a good sports analogy). Like a coach, you aren’t the one responsible for executing the plays or scoring the touchdowns. Instead, you see the big picture and guide your kids toward the best outcomes. You have a great vantage point to recognize many potential pitfalls and you can coach your kids on how to avoid or deal with them. You help them to understand how best to use the skills they already have and to shore up skills that are not as well developed. To continue with the sports analogy, your role as a coach changes as your kids get older. For younger kids, you have to actively teach them the skills they need. So, just like a kid playing football for the first time has to learn the rules of the game and learn basic skills, your toddlers and preschoolers have to learn the basics of how to interact with people (sharing, taking turns, keeping their hands to themselves, etc.). As they move up to the next league, they keep practicing the basics, but are also ready to learn new skills. You still have to actively teach them how to play the game, but at this point, they have a foundation and their natural instincts and talents have started to emerge. At this point, you start to balance teaching them new skills and helping them figure out how to apply previously learned skills. In this way, your elementary school age kids will need reminders of the basics of how to treat people, but they generally get it. At this age, you’re helping them figure out how to make and keep friends, how to share their friends’ attention, how to handle disagreements, how to deal with bullies, etc. They take charge more, but still need and are generally receptive to input from you about how to handle things. Around middle school, your kids hit an interesting stage. Social expectations take a big leap- parents/adults have less oversight over peer interactions, peer relationships become trickier, many kids are jockeying for position in their social circles, and kids start trying to figure out who they are. They also want to be more independent so stop sharing as many details about their social relationships with you. As their parent, it can be tempting to run interference and try to “reteach” skills when you see your kids struggling. But, think about what happens when a Little League coach tries to reteach a skill to a kid who has been playing a certain way for years. If not handled correctly, it can undermine a kid’s confidence and make positive change less likely. Instead of just telling a kid, “Hey, you’re doing that wrong” or giving a lot of negative feedback, it’s much more effective to focus on one portion of the skill and help them make adjustments. As you see your kids struggling with particular aspects of their social relationships, rather than offering unsolicited advice or telling them how to “fix” it, you can instead get their perspective on what’s going on and help them problem-solve about how to address the issue. They begin to learn how to evaluate their own relationships and social behavior and develop more confidence in their own skills and judgment. As your kids progress to JV & Varsity teams, coaching becomes less and less about teaching specific skills and more about helping them refine their skills and put them to best use. In the same way, your high schoolers don’t need as much directive coaching from you. Frankly, they’re also a lot less likely to listen to you than when they were in kindergarten. As a parent, it can be very tempting to dive in and tell them what to do. Have you ever found yourself saying things like, “You shouldn’t hang out with those kids” or “You shouldn’t care what other kids think of you”? There are a ton of examples I could come up with that are all intended to help, but these comments actually miss the thing your kids are struggling with the most. These comments also typically serve to tell your kids that you don’t understand them and that you don’t trust them to handle their own problems. Not what you intended, right? If you think about this like a coach, how would you best help your older kids? Well, my most helpful track coaches in high school and college took the approach of having me break down what went right and what went wrong at practices and at meets before they gave me their input. Sometimes their questions helped me recognize where improvements could be made and other times I had no idea, but that was okay. In addition to teaching me to think about what I was doing, these coaches were preparing me to learn. Since my coaches started by asking me what I thought was happening, I became more receptive to their feedback. You can do the same thing as your kids’ relationship coach. When they are talking about their relationships, ask them questions to help them see where problems are coming from and how they might be resolved. Any conclusions they come to are going to make a bigger impact than if you just told them what to do. For instance, if your kid is talking about a disagreement with a friend, you might recognize many signs that this person is not really your kid’s friend. What’s going to be more effective- telling your kid that their peer is a bad friend or asking your kid questions about how they want to be treated and what qualities they look for in a friend? No matter your child’s age, remember to steer clear of making these conversations a lecture or turning them into “teachable moments.” Keep it conversational and, most importantly, really listen to your kid. Even if you don’t agree with their line of thinking or you see some holes in their reasoning, resist the urge to immediately correct them. Instead, ask more questions. Your goal in these interactions is to make sure your kid feels understood and to make sure they know that you believe that their thoughts, feelings and perceptions have merit. As a coach, you want your kids to develop their own style of interacting, not just adopt yours. Your kids get to decide what kinds of relationships they want to have. Remember, you’re the coach. Your job is to help your kid analyze what’s happening, shore up their skills, and figure out how they want to handle a situation. The coach may call the plays, but the players have to figure out how to execute it. I can’t give you a step-by-step plan for how to coach your kids, but I can give you some tips that you can apply to your situation. First, you have to know your kids and their social skills/style of social interactions. Pay attention to how your kids interact with their peers, with family members and with you. Notice whether they tend to be more introverted or more extroverted. Think about how they typically approach problems in their social relationships. Second, use the information you gather about your kid’s style to make decisions about how best to guide them. For instance, if you have a non-confrontational kid, you’re probably not going to get very far if your first suggestion for resolving a problem with a friend is for them to confront the friend, right? You may be able to get them on board with a version of that plan, but you have to talk them through options to one that they think would be effective and that they would actually do. Knowing your kids will also help you figure out how hands-on you need to be. Some kids are fine with just some problem-solving or even just talking about an issue, while others need to practice or role-play before they’re comfortable entering a particular social situation. If you’re paying attention, asking questions, and truly listening to the answers, you’ll be a more effective coach. Third, follow up with your kids. If you and your kids have discussed an issue, follow up to see how things went. In some cases, you’ll be able to observe their actions, but usually you’ll hear about it after the fact. Following up sends the message that you care about your kids’ social lives and that you are there to support them. If things went well, great. If not, you have another opportunity to show them that you are there to help. Lastly, I know you want the best for your kids. But, remember, you have limited control over making that happen in your kids’ social lives. And as they get older, your kids can and will have more say in what’s best for them. You’re the coach but, in the end, they’re the ones out there on the field. Go Team! You've got this! Tell us how you support your kids with their social relationships?Leave a comment below, click this link or email us at [email protected].
Click here for a printable version of this post. As a reminder, we have an amazing handout for families with information about COVID-19 that you may find helpful when speaking with your kids. Click here to take a look.
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Sarah here. Last week, Lisa talked about how parents and their kids can differ in introversion and extroversion and how that may impact parents’ views of their kids’ social relationships. This week, as we continue to focus on social relationships, I’ll be focusing on something that can impact communication and interactions for both kids and adults: face masks. Wearing face masks in public is now a routine part of life for many kids and adults across the country. But, having a large part of our faces covered up can impact how we perceive and interact with each other. After all, a lot of communication is non-verbal, so by wearing face masks, we are losing a lot of valuable information. This can cause a lot of misunderstandings and social headaches for kids and adults alike. Think about your recent experiences out and about in the world- have you jumped to a conclusion about the attitude or intention of someone wearing a face mask? I sure have. Last weekend, my family and I walked past a woman who was wearing a face mask while sitting by a fountain. She looked up at us and made eye contact with me when we were passing. My first thought was, “Ugh! She is so judgy- what’s her problem?!” I replayed the “exchange” in my head. The woman had been passively looking down, then looked up when she heard us approaching. Her eyes were “neutral” as she looked at us- she didn’t have eyes wide with fear or narrowed in disdain. She was sitting with a relaxed posture. This woman was sitting peacefully minding her own business and in seconds, I had created a whole story about what she thought about me and my family. I had immediately assumed that she was being judgmental based on…neutrality. I came to a pretty extreme conclusion based on minimal information in this situation. Now, you may be better at reading other people’s cues than I am. Maybe you always give people the benefit of the doubt. You may consistently slow down enough to think about the context and take in all available information before jumping to conclusions about others. But even if you have that kind of social savvy, my guess is that your kids (like most kids) may hit a snag or two when navigating social interactions involving face masks. After all, when someone is wearing a face mask, that person’s experienced emotion and expressed or perceived emotion may not really match… The good news is that people can interpret social information pretty effectively, even in the absence of complete information. So, it’s possible to have positive social interactions and build social relationships, even when protective face coverings are in the mix. The less good news is that when face masks are involved, effectively communicating requires a more deliberate approach from both parties (the “listener” and the “speaker”). So now, why not test out your social prowess? Check out the side by side pictures below. Without giving it too much thought, which image shows the child smiling? How could you tell since you couldn’t see his whole face? Remember that smiling doesn’t just involve your mouth- various face muscles actually coordinate to create “true” smiles (also known as Duchenne smiles). Genuine smiles lift our cheeks and touch our eyes. “Real” smiles were coined “Duchenne smiles” after French neurologist Duchenne de Boulogne, who famously used electrical stimulation to recreate and catalog facial expressions in human subjects. He found that although the muscles could be stimulated to create a wide “smile,” that smile looked artificial. “Fake smiles” are more likely to only involve our mouths so the rest of our face doesn’t “light up” with happiness. Incidentally, “fake smiles” have been described as Pan Am smiles, because historically Pan Am flight attendants were reportedly trained to constantly wear this smile. But, if I’m talking about social interaction and communication while wearing face masks, who cares about smiles, right?! Well, it turns out that while there are person-to-person and culturally based variations in facial expressions and in how expressive people are, there are also fairly universal microexpressions. Vanessa Van Edwards over at the Science of People describes microexpressions as brief, involuntary expressions that happen when we experience an emotion. According to Vanessa, microexpressions, which are hard to fake but vital to understand, include: fear, surprise, sadness, happiness, anger, disgust and contempt. When you think about the social situations that you and your kids may find yourselves in, remember that for right now, masks are here to stay. Educate yourself on how to be socially savvy in the era of face masks. Teach your kids what to look for (literally) when reading the emotions of others. Then you can practice reading each other’s emotions or role-playing social interactions so they know how things may look and feel. By helping your kids slow down, pay attention to context and take in all of the available information, they’ll be able to interact with the world more effectively and interpret interactions in these ambiguous times. Today, instead of me reinventing the wheel, I suggest you head over to Science of People and check out Vanessa Van Edwards’ post about reading microexpressions while people are wearing face masks. She includes descriptions of each microexpression along with pictures of what each looks like with and without a face mask. And, for those of you who love quizzes, there’s one that tests your face reading skills. Find her post at: https://www.scienceofpeople.com/masks/ I also recommend that you check out Cassie Stephens’ blog. Cassie is an art teacher who created a lesson plan for 1stgraders about face masks and reading emotions. You can check out her post at: https://cassiestephens.blogspot.com/2020/08/lets-make-mask-emotions.html Click here for printable version of this post.
Have an amusing face mask-related social misfire to share? What about tips for reading social interactions through face masks? Leave a comment below, click this link or email us at [email protected]. As a reminder, we have an amazing handout for families with information about COVID-19 that you may find helpful when speaking with your kids. Click here to take a look. Have you ever found yourself asking your kids the following questions? Why don’t you give one of your friends a call? Why don’t you go over there and play with the other kids? OR How come you’re never at home? How am I supposed to keep up with all your “friends? How do your kids respond when you ask those questions? If you’re like most of the moms that Sarah and I work with, you probably get a lot of eye rolling and sighing. You may even get a response along the lines of, “Because.” These interactions usually leave both of you feeling frustrated and misunderstood. But, why are these interactions so frustrating for you and your kids? You’re just trying to look out for your kids’ best interests, right? You want them to have a healthy, balanced social life. Not staying at home being isolated like a hermit, but not out with friends all the time. You want them to find people who are positive influences that accept them and provide them with support and encouragement. So, why don’t your efforts work? Why do your kids resist when you offer suggestions about their social lives? Is it just because they’re kids, and kids disagree with their parents just on principle? Well, while that may be true for some kids, most kids don’t argue with their parents about their social lives just to be difficult. Ok, I want you to stay with me here. Is it possible that maybe, just maybe your kids are happy with their social lives the way they are? And is it possible that what they want might be okay? You and your kids may have different perspectives on what they need in their social lives. A few months ago, I talked a little about introverts and extroverts (Who Are These People? 4/24/2020). Remember, introverts get their energy from having time to themselves, while extroverts get their energy from interacting with other people. Introverts may enjoy being around other people, but they need breaks to recharge. Extroverts may need some alone time, but they need social interaction to recharge. Most people are some combination of the two, but your kids likely lean more one way or the other. Whether your kids tend to be more introverted or extroverted influences their social relationships. Your introverted kids may have a few close friends. They may not want to go to parties or large gatherings, or they may not be inclined to invite friends to go places (although they would happily go if invited) or. They may also spend a lot of time alone. That does not mean that they don’t have quality friendships or that they don’t have real friends. Remember, being around other people, especially in informal social situations, requires a lot of energy from introverts even when they’re having a good time. On the other hand, your extroverted kids may seek out a number of close friendships and acquaintances. They may constantly ask to go places with friends or to have friends over. While they may talk with friends via electronics, they also enjoy physically being with their friends. You may have a hard time getting them to stay at home (or to come home after they’ve gone somewhere with friends). But, their tendency to have larger friend groups doesn’t mean that they don’t have close, meaningful friendships. So, what happens when there’s a mismatch between you and your kids? If you’re an introvert, your extroverted kids’ need for frequent social interaction may feel overwhelming and you may not understand why they won’t just quietly go do something by themselves. If you’re an extrovert, you may feel frustrated and bewildered by your introverted kids’ resistance to approaching groups of kids or to inviting friends over. Many of the parents that Sarah and I see struggle with just this kind of mismatch. So, what do you do about it? First, you need to determine whether your kids are actually struggling socially or if they are just different from you in terms of their need for social engagement. If they seem to have a hard time connecting with others or are truly experiencing social isolation, they may need help or intervention aimed at helping them learn and practice the skills they need to develop successful social relationships. However, most kids don’t actually need intervention. One way to find out if your kids are struggling socially is just to ask them. It’s very tempting to go by what you observe. If you see your kids spending a lot of time in their rooms, it can be easy to assume that they don’t have friends. If your kids are always wanting to go out, it can lead to the conclusion that they don’t want to be around their family or that they aren’t taking care of other responsibilities. But those conclusions aren’t necessarily accurate. Instead of jumping right in with suggestions about your kids’ social lives, have a conversation first. Ask about friends and what they like to do together. Talk with them about how their friends support them and vice versa. Also, ask them about whether they enjoy being around other people or if they feel more enjoyment having down time by themselves. If you and your kids have an introvert/extrovert mismatch, it’s even more important that you listen to what they have to say about their friendships. You know your kids- if they’re resistant to hanging out with large groups, is it necessary that do so? If they love going out with friends, is there a way to balance that with their other responsibilities at home or school? Showing your kids that you understand their social needs and helping them identify areas where they may want or need to make small changes is going to get you a lot farther than lecturing them or putting them in awkward social situations. Overall, keep this in mind: If your kids are happy with how their social relationships are going, isn’t that the goal? Click here for a printable version of this post.
Share your ideas for talking with your kids about friendships and their social lives. Leave a comment below, click this link or email us at [email protected]. As a reminder, we have an amazing handout for families with information about COVID-19 that you may find helpful when speaking with your kids. Click here to take a look. |
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August 2023
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Address12412 San Jose Blvd.
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Telephone904-432-3321
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