Often times, we as parents and educators spend the majority of our time working on either academics or compliant behavior with our special need children. However, if you ask any parent what they want most for their child, they will say for them to be happy. And if you ever catch a parent crying, it seems it’s usually because someone hurt their child or their kiddo just doesn’t fit in. Let’s face it, social skills may not really get the attention it deserves.
If you think about it, every aspect of our life requires social skills to be successful and most all of our children, no matter what the disability, seem to struggle. Every environment we are in is a social situation. There are often ways to compensate if our child has physical or academics challenges. However there really is no accommodation that can be made if your child can’t effectively relate to others. Simply put, there is no way around it.
I think as parents we feel that if the child is mainstreamed and given opportunities to learn social skills, they will. This is not true. If our kiddos could pick up social cues and skills, they would have learned from us or their typical siblings a long time ago. They need to be taught.
There are many reasons for social inappropriate behaviors and un-acceptance. Some of those reasons are obvious handicaps that create a distance of understanding. Often times, those challenges can be helped with disability awareness and creative solutions within the school. However, some of our children have social deficits which are a part of their disability which aren’t so straightforward.
Many of our children don’t have command of the question. Asking questions is the primary ice breaker in any given social situation. It is the way we gather special information and many of our kids can’t do it. Everything comes out as a statement which gives no room for an exchange to develop. Also, many of our children lack the appropriately developed inhibitor responses and everything they think, comes out of their mouth. Not helpful in keeping friends……. can you imagine if we did that? Blurting out inappropriate thoughts as well as common impulsivity issues can create quite the social path of destruction.
So what do we do? We hardly need more information about what’s wrong with our kiddos. We need to empower them. We need to empower us. If a child makes a mistake in their math or reading problem, teachers and parents are happy to explain what they did wrong. However, often times when our children make a social mistake, we punish them. We need to use this as an opportunity to take apart the situation apart and teach them the appropriate behavior. Since most children really want to be socially accepted, for the most part we can assume those mistakes they make are due to a lack of knowing the correct action or response. So maybe we begin by using these opportunities as a teaching moment.
In a study by Fox & Weaver, 1989 children were divided into four groups: the rejected, the ignored, the controversial and the popular. In the past, psychologists and educators looked at what the children in the socially isolated groups were doing wrong. However, if you want to be successful, why would you look to the unsuccessful for clues? Wouldn’t it make more sense to study success?
The study found the “popular” kids were the ones who everyone on the campus or in the neighborhood liked, even if they didn’t know them. They looked at the positive traits and found some characteristics they all had in common. So what if we taught our kids these skills?
- Popular kids were always smiling and laughing
- They always greeted others
- They extended invitations
- They shared
- They knew how to give compliments and gave them regularly
- They knew how to converse back and forth
- They looked physically appealing
Another challenge, according to educator Rick Lavoie, is discovering and understanding “hidden curriculum”. Every school has an underlying “code” of what’s cool and what’s not as well as certain rules and guidelines that everyone else seems to “get”. Our kiddos may need these unwritten rules explained. The parents and staff should work together to make sure these are taught and are a part of every IEP discussion. For more information and examples see Rick Lavoie’s DVD Last One Picked, First One Picked On.
There are many resources out there to help us.
Big Brothers & Sisters
http://www.bbbsaz.org
The Buddy Program
RDI (Relationship Development Intervention)
http://www.rdiconnect.com
Friend Program
Rick Lavoie articles and Videos
http://www.ricklavoie.com
