One of the most important aspects of a person's learning is their social development. And
I know in our society today social development is a top priority. So, how do you teach appropriate
social skills to children? Because there are social skills all over the place. Some are
appropriate and some are not. My father was a public school teacher for his whole career
until he retired. He still teaches University. He's a smart guy. Love you dad. Anyway, so
you can imagine that when I told my dad that I was going to home school my children, starting
with my first son, who would never been to school yet that he might have wondered if
I was okay. Because I was one of those students that was top of my class. I did really well
in school. I succeeded socially. Really succeeded socially. I was in student government, I edited
news paper. I was... I had leads in the plays. I was on the sports teams. I had lots of friends.
Socially, it seemed like I was a success. Why would I ever want to do anything different
with my own children than what I've done myself? So, it didn't surprise me very much that my
father said to me, "Okay. But Nicholeen, what about their social?" Well, I was prepared
for that. And I said, "You know dad? Spencer and I have talked about it. And we have decided
that we have a different idea of what proper social development is. Than what a lot of
other people might think." For instance, we don't think bullying is appropriate social
development. We don't think that teasing is appropriate social development. We don't think
that sexting is appropriate social development. Of course there wasn't sexting back then.
But I gave them a list of a whole bunch of things. And of course, we don't think sexting
is a proper social development. So anyway, I said, "Dad, we really care a lot about social
and we're going to do a great job with it. I promise." He said, "Okay, but I'm not sure
he thought this social experiment with his grandchildren was so wise. Well, time goes
by. Within about a year, my father was saying to me, "Wow, I wish I would have home school
my children. Your children are so well-adjusted. They're so confident. They can talk to adults
of all ages." My children have friends that are every age. Friends that are same age,
and friends that are adults, and friends that are younger than them. I remember when my
oldest son was in his teen years. He said, "Mom, is it weird that some of my very best
friends are 50 years old?" And I laughed and said, "No. He said, "Because they are. The
friends I admired the most and that I trust the most are the 50, 60, 70 year old men that
I seeing in a barbershop course with. I value them almost more than anybody else." That's
who he learned from. He learned how to become a man from men. That was so social development.
He learned social skills from people who already perfected them over the course of their lives.
Instead of from people who were just learning social skills themselves. So that brings me
to the question, what is the best way to learn appropriate social skills? There are multiple
different ways that a person can learn social skills. You can learn them from the media.
You can learn them from peers. Your own age. Or you could learn them from your family.
Hmmm.. Which way would you like your children to learn social skills? Just so you know,
children usually always turn out just as social as their parents are. So, if you have a certain
social skill that shines, your children will probably have a chance of inheriting that
same social skill from you. They'll inherit it by watching you, observing that social
skills success. If you make friends easily, your children will learn how to make friends
easily. If you communicate openly, your children will learn how to communicate openly. Obviously,
there's personalities and such that can factor in to some social development. But for the
most part as social as the parent is is just as social as their children that they're going
to turn out. I remember bringing up to my father, "You know dad, every body always knows
those weird home-schoolers. I mean, how many YouTube videos are there about weird home-schoolers?
Just look them up. They're so funny." And it's true. There are weird home-schoolers.
And we laugh at ourselves. But aren't there also really weird public schoolers and really
weird private schoolers and charter schoolers and whatever that kind of schoolers there
are? Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I remember some of those weird students that I shared
a classroom with when I was going to school. And when you meet their parents, you go, "Oh,
that's why. Because their parents have a little bit of a social audity too. That's just how
it goes. So, one of the best things that we can remember when we're teaching our children
appropriate social skills is if we have appropriate skills, they are much more likely to have
appropriate social skills too. Besides example, there are multiple other things that you can
do to teach our children appropriate social skills. First, observe them when they are
in social settings. Especially because our children were home-schooled. And they were
used to talking to all kinds of people like the clerk at the store as well as the neighbor's
baby. Not just children they're age. We wanted to make sure that when they did communicate
with children their age, they were going to be successful. So, we did this weird thing.
Why not do one other weird thing as a peck family. And we decided to be present when
our children were launching into a next social phase. I know a whole bunch of people did
not get it probably. They probably felt we we're over protective in some way. Or maybe
even that we didn't approve of the other adult leadership that was at the particular event
our child went to. But that had nothing to do with it. We were just helping our child
socially adjust and navigate things socially so that they would be the most successful.
So what this meant was that we went to groups with our children. Usually, in our religion,
children start going to groups really regularly when they're around the age of 12. So, as
soon as our children turned 12 and we're going to start attending these youth groups, we
decided that Spencer would go with the boys and I would go with the girls. When they were
in those first couple of years of attending the youth groups. The reason was simple. We
would go observe how our child behave socially with the other children. And then afterward,
we would discuss it, give them pointers, help them navigate things socially. If they found
someone was bullying or not being kind or were saying mean things to them, we could
also help them understand that child and plan how to handle future confrontations like that
in a calm and effective manner. This is what we did to help them. We went to camps with
them. Scout camps, girls camps. All that kind of stuff. Specifically to teach our children
social skills. And we didn't turn our children over to other adults or other groups of people
until we were very secure with their social development. I know a lot of people probably
didn't get that. They probably thought we were strange. But we were. So, there you go.
Being weird is okay especially if it's part of the deliberate plan. And we had a deliberate
plan. Another way to teach appropriate social skills to children is to make sure that you
always value the contributions of all the people around you. Value the contributions
of the people in your family. Value your neighbors and what they can contribute to your society.
Value all of the people. Don't spend your time talking bad about others, gossiping,
pointing out all the flaws. Sure with children, you should talk about some of the negative
things so they don't make similar mistakes that you see around you and society. But it
should always be done with the tone of love, understanding and value if you do have to
discuss a person's mistakes that their making. If you value another person, then your children
will learn to value people too. If they value people, they're going to make friends more.
People can tell when someone cares about you. They ask you questions. They listen when you're
talking. Valuing another person is a great social skill to have. Part of valuing people
involves listening like I mentioned. And a person who learns how to listen well also
will stop thinking about what they want to tell. That's important. A good listener just
listens even if that means afterwards it's followed by silence. So, I teach my children
that when are listening to another person to focus intently on what that other person
is really saying. Ask clarifying questions and then just wait to see where the conversations
seems to turn. But do not feel obligated to have to say something just because their silence
or just because that other person was talking. Listening also helps you get dates. And I
told my children this: "What is the goal of social development anyway?" For most people
that end all be all goal is to find that person they want to share their lives with. Sure
it helps as succeed in business and socially in a few other ways. But truly, it's to find
them a meaningful relationship with another person. I've always told my children, "if
you listen and you ask another person questions, if you are interested in that person and you
want to get a second date with that person, you get that other person talking about themselves
a lot. Then they'll really enjoy your company." So, that relates to the valuing and listening.
Asking questions makes people feel important. Appropriate social skills don't necessarily
come naturally. Which means parents need to pre-teach appropriate social skills to their
children. So before, Paige would go to (say) church activity or she was going to be with
her friends, we might talk what she could expect there. And then what skills she might
need to use if certain things happen. That's pre-teaching. I want my children to know the
skills they need to succeed. One of those skills that is so important for proper social
development is disagreeing appropriately.We have 4 basic skills that we teach with the
Teaching Self-government Parenting model. The 4th of those skills is disagreeing appropriately.
It's not just for parents and children to use together but it's also for children to
use with children. Parents to use with parents. It's just a social skill for everybody to
use. If you know how to disagree appropriately, you get your way more. And who doesn't want
that. So, when our arguments occur, if they're got that skill under their belt, they're ready.
Probably one of the biggest mistakes that people make socially is they cross over boundaries
that they shouldn't. They start voicing opinions about things that aren't really their business.
Or maybe they start to touch people like they don't want to be touched. I remember I did
this in high school. It was.. I would walk down the hall... Maybe it was junior high.
Now, I think it was science school. I walked down the hall and I would just sort of slug
people in the belly. I don't know why I did this. I just... And someone started it. I
think someone did it to me. I didn't mind it. And so then I just started doing it to
other people. But guess what? They didn't like it. And I didn't know they didn't like
it. Until finally somebody said to me, "Why do you keep hitting me in the stomach. I don't
like it." And I went, "Oh, no. How many people... How many friends have I now hit in the stomach?"
And it wasn't like hard. It was just a little soft kind of like I-like-you kind of a tap.
it wasn't appropriate. And people didn't appreciate it. There was a boundary line I should not
of cross there. Every boundary line is essentially a no answer. If you're not supposed to get
in somebody else's business, tell yourself no. Drop the subject. Don't think about whatever
it was you were going to say anymore. If you are going to touch someone but you know you
shouldn't because there's a boundary line there, give yourself a no answer, drop the
subject, don't think about it anymore. Sit on your hands if you have to. Boundaries is
key to social success. If a person is going to have appropriate social skills, they need
to know where they're boundary lines are. Parents are going to have to define that for
their children. Because it's hard to figure those things out just like it was hard for
me to figure it out who wanted to be punched and who didn't. Another vital social skill
that a person needs to be taken seriously with their friends colleagues, family members
is calmness. The way that we communicate with each other sets the tone for our whole relationship.
If we want people to care about what our children to say about what we say, we've got to be
calm. I could talk about this a length. In fact, you probably already seen at the channel
how many videos are related to calmness. Since calmness is so important, I would like to
give you a free gift. It's called the Calm Parenting Toolkit. And it gives you the tools
you need to communicate in calm ways and to help your children communicate in calm ways.
If you go down to description below this video, there is a link to the Calm Parenting Toolkit.
Click that. Go get the toolkit, it's free. And it will help you even more to prepare
your children to appropriately, socially associate with others.