I get a little embarrassed when I’m in public with my kids and strangers kindly make conversation with them. They respond by blatantly turning their heads away and acting as though they are mute. I know they’re not. They talk all the time. Seriously, nonstop. I don’t blame them entirely, they’re newly three, and I understand how it can feel overwhelming and scary to talk to someone you don’t know. However, at some point, kids do need to learn how to generate conversation with others so they can A) make friends and B) just be polite human beings in general. It’s a set of skills they’ll need on an almost daily basis throughout their whole lives.
After going through the following process approximately 1 billion times–kind stranger addresses my children, my children ignore them completely, and I step in to answer the question for them and make a comment about how we’re still working on talking to new people–I asked myself: what can I do to help my kids build those necessary social skills? Are there things that we can practice at home or things that I can do when we’re in social situations that would help them gain confidence and teach them to go about initiating conversation with other kids and adults?
I came up a little short on figuring out the answer for this question as I myself struggle a little in social situations. I find it hard to strike up a conversation with someone I don’t know and I always have to remind myself to make eye contact when conversing with others. I’m a self-proclaimed introvert and a room full of people that I don’t know, or don’t know well, is my kryptonite. I experience the classic trifecta of social nervousness, my palms get a little sweaty, my heart beats fast, and I usually end up babbling at least a little because my brain doesn’t seem to function properly in those situations.
I generally have to psych myself up for large social gatherings, I do some positive self talk, “you can do this, socializing is good for you,” I take a few deep breaths and I paste a smile on my face. (Thanks for that mom and dad, I’m pretty sure I inherited my socially awkward tendencies from both of you.) Socializing in large groups feels a bit like exercise and I have a limit as to how long I can sustain it before I just want to sneak away to my quiet and comfortable home. With some practice I’ve come a long way, in that I now actually enjoy parties in small doses, however my preference would still be to spend time with a close friend one-on-one, or in a small group setting.
Knowing this about myself, I again can’t be too hard on my kids when it comes to their difficulty socializing with others. I’ve realized that social skills are something that needs to be learned and practiced as opposed to something innate within us. To address this, we’ve started introducing a few simple strategies to help the kids get more comfortable with talking to new people. While we’re playing together in the living room at home we pretend to introduce ourselves and then we shake hands. We prompt the twins to look in our eyes, project their voice when they say their name, and then we say, “shake, shake, squeeze” while shaking hands. We always dissolve into giggles because watching a toddler open their eyes to the size of saucers and get their face really close to yours, yell their name, and then perform a handshake is about the cutest/funniest thing I’ve ever seen. We’ve also started referring to other children as “friends” and we’re practicing identifying peoples’ feelings based on their facial expressions with the goal being to help build empathy for others.
We’ve had a few chances recently to practice our new skills at different social gatherings, however so far the twins will only shake hands with other kids and adults that they already know. Not quite what we’re going for, but we’re happy to see baby steps. At one of these gatherings I observed another parent do something really cool, something I hadn’t thought to do before. When a child that they didn’t know entered the room, in a really friendly way they said, “Hi, what’s your name?” He then introduced himself and his sons to this new child and he prompted the kids to say hi to each other. It was such a simple thing, yet it absolutely blew my mind! Of course I should be modeling the behaviors that I want my kids to learn in a real-life social setting, rather than just practicing the behaviors on our own at home! They’re always imitating the things that I do, that’s why they already pretend to”text” on their toy phone! A behavior I should probably model less often.
It remains to be seen how my kids will turn out. Will they prefer spending time alone, or one-on-one, or in small groups like me? Or will they thrive in large social settings and get energized from interacting with lots of people. I’d say the cards are stacked against them for the latter of these options, however stranger things have happened. Maybe they’ll enjoy a healthy balance somewhere in the middle. In the meantime, we’ll continue work to help them develop the skills they need to make friends with other children, empathize with others, and to interact politely with friendly adults in public.
