Chapter 8

Assertiveness and Social Skills

The Importance of Social Skills

Most anxious children are perfectly competent at making friends and interacting with other people. However, some anxious children simply don’t seem to be able to interact with others in a smooth or skilled manner. Sometimes this can make other children and even adults react negatively to these children by ignoring them, rejecting them, or even teasing them. As you can imagine, if this happens, it makes it pretty hard for an already anxious child to learn to be more confident.

George’s Example

George spends most of his spare time alone. Even at school, you will find him on his own. He rarely speaks to his classmates. At lunchtime, he usually goes to the library and sits on his own, reading a book. Sometimes he walks around the school and stops to watch some of his classmates playing soccer. They never ask him to join in. In fact, they don’t notice that he is there. George would love to join in, but he can’t think of how to ask and he is afraid that they will laugh at him or refuse to let him play. He returns to the classroom after lunch and sits at the back of the class hoping not to be called upon to answer any questions. He doesn’t speak to the other students. He really likes the girl who sits in front of him in science class. He would love to talk to her but he can’t think of what to say and is afraid that he would get it wrong and feel stupid. The class teacher is going around the class asking everyone to give an idea for the school festival. George thinks it would be a good idea to run a coconut stall where you win a prize for knocking the coconut off a stand. George’s turn comes. He looks down at his desk and mumbles, wishing that he could disappear. He tries to explain his idea to the teacher, but his voice is too quiet and no one can hear him. The teacher moves on to the next person in the class.

After school, George walks home on his own. One of his classmates goes the same way home. George notices that the boy has dropped his school folder and the pages are flying around. George wants to offer to help but is not sure what to say. He walks past, leaving the boy to pick up the papers on his own.

The next day, George is standing in line at the school cafeteria, waiting to buy some lunch. Another boy pushes in front of him, leaving George feeling angry. He would love to tell the boy to go back to the end of the line but he does not say anything.

Why Are Social Skills and Assertiveness Important?

Children need to be successful in a wide range of situations with other children and with adults, including parents and teachers. For example, with other children, they need to be able to hold conversations, ask to join in games or activities, and invite other children to play or to come over for a visit. They need to be able to ask questions, ask to take a turn in a game, give compliments, offer toys or items to other children, and assert their rights if they are unfairly treated. All these activities are important if children are to make friends and be accepted into their peer group.

Children also need to be able to handle adults. For example, they need to be able to ask for help when they need it, offer to help, express their point of view, pick the right moment to interrupt, answer questions, and start and maintain conversations with adults. When you start to think about it, there are an enormous number of social tasks that children have to be able to perform in a competent way. By the time children reach adolescence, there are an even greater number of social situations that they have to learn to handle, including romantic relationships, getting through job interviews, and keeping a job.

The skills that we need in order to perform these social tasks successfully are called social skills. Our research shows that some anxious children perform more poorly than other children on many social tasks. There are two possibilities as to why this might be the case. It might be that some anxious children are too afraid to use their skills. In other words, they might know what to do, but their anxiety stops them from doing it. Alternatively, some anxious children may not develop their social skills because they have less experience and practice at interacting with other children. Many anxious children avoid interactions with others and therefore may have less opportunity to practice how to interact with other people. Whatever the explanation, our research has shown that there are significant benefits to teaching anxious children social skills in order to improve their relationships with others. Anxious children also tend not to be very assertive. Assertiveness is the ability to express your needs, to assert your rights with other people, and to stick up for yourself in a way that produces a positive outcome.

The Social Skills Hierarchy

There are five main areas of social skills; these skills are generally progressive, with the skills listed first being needed before the latter skills can develop.

Body Language Skills

Eye contact: Child looks others in the eye during conversations to show that he or she is listening and paying attention but does not stare excessively.

Many anxious children avoid making eye contact and tend to look down or away when talking to others. This may be seen by others as indicating unfriendliness and lack of interest. It’s also a problem if children make too much eye contact during conversations and stare at others too much, as this makes other people feel uncomfortable.

Posture: Child sits or stands in a way that’s appropriate for the situation.

Some postures, such as being slumped, hunched up, turning away from the other person, or being excessively rigid and upright, may create a poor impression on others.

Facial expression: Child’s facial expressions are appropriate to the situation. He or she smiles and has a friendly face when talking generally with others and uses sad and angry facial expressions occasionally, appropriate to the situation.

Facial expressions communicate how we are feeling. Bored, angry, or fearful facial expressions or lack of smiling may be seen by other children and adults as a sign of unfriendliness.

Voice-Quality Skills

Tone and pitch: Child’s speech is usually friendly, expressive, and pleasant to listen to. The child can use different tones of voice to communicate different emotions.

If a child’s voice sounds boring, aggressive, fearful, whining, or is unpleasant to listen to, then this may lead to misunderstandings with other people who may misinterpret the tone of voice, thinking the child unfriendly, aggressive, or uninterested. Children need to be able to use a friendly tone of voice in most situations.

Volume: Child’s volume of speech is appropriate for different situations.

Children need to be able to speak up so that they’re heard and yet not to speak so loud as to be inappropriate. Many anxious children speak too quietly, which interferes with their communication with others.

Rate: Child speaks at an appropriate rate—not too quickly and not too slowly.

Very slow speech may sound boring. Very fast speech is hard to follow.

Clarity: Child speaks clearly and is easy to understand.

Conversations are difficult if children’s speech is hard to follow. Some anxious children tend to mumble and have difficulty speaking clearly enough that others can understand them.

Conversation Skills

Greetings and introductions: Child says “hello” or other greeting when meeting people he or she knows. For older children, the ability to introduce themselves to others is important.

Most children know what to say when they greet someone but they may be too anxious to do so or they may not do so in a socially skilled way. In all conversation skills, children must remember to use the basic skills of eye contact, appropriate facial expression, and clear, audible speech.

Starting conversations: Child is able to start a conversation by asking simple questions or making simple statements.

Some anxious children avoid starting conversations with others. They tend to be quiet most of the time, particularly with people they don’t know well. This makes it difficult for them to form friendships with other children.

Holding conversations—answering questions: Child listens to what the other person has said and answers with some detail rather than with very brief answers.

Some anxious children give very short answers when other people ask them a question. The information that they give is minimal and does not convey the message that he or she would like to continue the conversation or is interested in the other person.

Holding conversations—asking questions: Child asks appropriate questions of the other person to allow the conversation to continue. The questions are likely to be of interest to the other person.

Children need to be able to ask questions in order to continue a conversation. Not asking questions often gives the impression that they are not interested and don’t want to mix with the other person.

Holding conversations—taking turns: Child takes turns in conversations, listens to others, and then returns with an appropriate comment or question.

Two-way conversation skills are important if children are going to form friendships. Sometimes anxious children tend to interrupt or talk over the top of others in their attempts to get their answers out at all costs.

Choosing topics of conversation: Child picks appropriate topics of conversation.

It is important that children can pick conversation topics that the other person is interested in and that are appropriate to the situation. Anxious children often have difficulty thinking of things to talk about. They need to learn about the types of things that other children are interested in if they are going to form friendships.

Using polite conversation: Child uses polite speech and says “please” and “thank you” as appropriate.

For most children this is not a problem, but we mention it because the rules of polite communication are an important factor in determining the impression that children make upon adults (e.g., teachers) and peers.

Friendship Skills

Offering help or items: Child offers to help other children or adults, or offers to lend or give items where appropriate.

Forming friendships requires that children can show kindness to others. One part of this is to be able to offer to help others when they need it. Friendship involves giving and receiving help of various kinds. Some anxious children will stand by and do nothing when they really want to help. This may then be misinterpreted as unfriendliness and lack of caring.

Offering invitations: Child invites other children to join in with activities or to come over to his or her house.

Friendships involve spending time together and making an effort by showing that you would like to make friends. Offering invitations to others and initiating activities is part of this process.

Asking to join in: Child approaches other children to ask to join in their activity.

Many anxious children are reluctant to ask other children if they can join in their activity. Often they really want to join in, but they stand on the edge of the activity watching because they may not know what to say or may be too afraid to try for fear of looking foolish.

Expressing affection: Child expresses affection toward children and adults where appropriate, either using speech or physical gestures such as holding hands, hugs, gentle touches, and pats on the back.

The ability to show affection is important in forming friendships with peers. This can be something very simple and physical and does not have to be verbal.

Giving compliments: Child gives compliments to others (adults and children) when appropriate.

The ability to give positive feedback to other people is an important part of friendship. It shows that one person is interested in the other and wants to make that person feel good. This is just as important in children’s friendships as it is in adult relationships.

Showing caring when others are hurt or upset: Child tries to help others and to care for them when they are hurt or upset.

Children need to be sensitive to other people and to show that they care when others are hurt or upset. Children cannot always do something to help, but they may try to check that the other person is okay and try to comfort that person in some way, which might be physical (e.g., a gentle touch), a spoken comment, or by asking someone else to help.

Assertiveness Skills

Sticking up for one’s rights: Child is able to stick up for his or her rights without causing harm to other people.

There are many situations in which children have to learn how to stick up for themselves. There will be times when other children or adults try to take advantage of them, do not attend to their needs, or try to pressure them into doing something that they don’t want to do. Anxious children tend to be unassertive and have difficulty sticking up for their rights. However, if children are too active in asserting themselves, then this may become aggression. In all instances, it is important that children deal with these situations in a way that does not cause harm to other people. Assertiveness requires communication of clear messages, in a loud, strong voice (but not an aggressive one). It requires being able to say how one feels and exactly what one does or does not want to happen. If a problem is too difficult to solve, the child may need to actively seek help from an adult.

Asking for help or information or expressing needs: Child is able to ask for help or information and to inform others when he or she needs something.

At school, it is particularly important that children can ask for help, clarification, or information from their teachers when they need it. Problems may arise if children remain silent when they need help. Children also need to be able to request help from their peers.

Saying no: Child is able to refuse unreasonable requests and to say no when he or she wishes to do so.

It is important that children are able to say when they don’t want to do something. They need to be able to say how they feel and to refuse unreasonable requests from others. Some children may find themselves doing things that they don’t want to do or having things taken from them because they have not clearly stated how they feel or clearly communicated the answer “no.”

Dealing with teasing: Child is able to deal successfully with teasing from others.

All children have to deal with teasing. They need to be able to put a stop to excessive teasing and to learn not to become too hurt by it. Of course, if it is very frequent and severe, you and your school will need to become involved.

Dealing with bullying: Child is able to stop attempts at bullying by others, either by using his or her own strategies or by seeking the help of others.

As with teasing, all children will encounter incidents of bullying at some point in their lives. However, no child should have to put up with bullying, and we will discuss various ways in which children can put a stop to it. Again, parents and schools need to become involved in ongoing cases.

Teaching Social Skills

There are many ways in which you can teach social skills to your child. The strategies that you use for teaching will depend on how much difficulty your child has in using social skills. Some children have just a few areas of difficulty. Others may have poor performance in many of the skills described in “The Social Skills Hierarchy” section above. For those children who have just a few areas of difficulty, we use a strategy called incidental teaching.

Incidental Teaching

Incidental teaching involves using opportunities that occur in everyday life to teach a particular skill rather than having special teaching sessions that are dedicated to training your child to use social skills. Incidental teaching involves the following:

• Identifying social situations in which particular social skills are needed
• Explaining to your child that a particular skill is needed in that situation and how it should be performed
• Explaining why it is important
• Checking that your child has understood what is needed
• Prompting your child to use the skill
• Praising your child for attempting to use the skill and describing what he or she did well
• Giving your child gentle feedback about ways in which the skill could be improved

When you are using incidental teaching, it is important that you keep things really simple and stick to one skill at a time. Children become confused if they have to concentrate on too many things at once. When an appropriate situation arises, decide which skill is most important. Make sure that the skill is not too difficult and that your child has learned simpler skills first. Incidental teaching of social skills can easily be included in your child’s stepladders.

Jess’s Example

Jess’s parents noticed that she rarely made eye contact with other children or with her teachers. Jess tended to look down or away when other people spoke to her. Jess and her father had to attend a parent-teacher evening at the school. Her father suggested that Jess work on making eye contact with her teacher during the interview. Jess and her father discussed why it was important to make eye contact and how this influenced the impression that people make on each other. Jess understood what was required and laughed when she found herself making eye contact with her father. Just before going into the classroom for their interview, Jess’s father prompted his daughter to remind her to use eye contact with the teacher. During the interview Jess tried hard, and her father noticed Jess making occasional eye contact with the teacher. Once they were alone again, her father told Jess how well she had done and how he had noticed the big improvement. They talked about how it had felt and about other situations in which eye contact would be important.

Helping Children Who Need More Intensive Teaching

Some children will need more intensive teaching in order to learn to be more socially skilled. Here are some guidelines about how to teach social skills to your child using a more structured approach. The teaching methods are basically the same as for incidental teaching. For each skill, you will be using the following teaching methods:

• Instruction and explanation
• Practice and prompting of the skill
• Feedback
• Praise

Social skills are like building blocks. Often it is difficult to know which skills to teach and where to start. We believe that children need to work on each small skill and then gradually put them all together to create a good performance. We suggest that you start with body language skills and when your child is good at these, move on to conversation skills.

When you are teaching social skills to your child, he or she may feel a bit uncomfortable and embarrassed, so it is helpful to use games and enjoyable activities. Humor is also a good way of reducing anxiety and making the sessions enjoyable. However, it is important to laugh with your child and not at your child.

Giving Instructions

Ideally you should focus on just one skill at a time, and that skill becomes the theme of the session. When you teach a skill to a child, you need to begin by giving information about the skill. In particular, you need to give information about the following:

• Exactly what is involved in the skill—how is it performed?
• Why is it important—what happens if the skill is not used?

Having discussed the skill, it is important to then demonstrate how the skill is performed. You can regard yourself as a bit like a coach in a sports situation. You can demonstrate the skill yourself or find some real-life examples to show your child. For example, you could watch other people in a shopping center or on television and discuss how they are using the skill.

It often works well to show what happens when the skill is not used. This can produce some comical situations. For example, you can hold a conversation with your child without using any eye contact. You can then discuss why eye contact is important and how your child felt while you were doing this. Another activity might be to sit in a café together and look for people who don’t use social skills well. A fun idea, especially with younger children, is to watch their favorite television show with them and see who can pick out examples of good and bad skills the quickest.

The instructions phase is more difficult with younger children. It basically consists of giving prompts or requests for use of the skill (for example, “I am going to ask you a question, and when you give your answer, I want you to use a loud, clear voice so that I can hear what you say. Can we try that now?”). With younger children, you can also demonstrate skills by using puppets (for example, two puppets can be used to show how to say “hello” and ask questions of each other). You can also use puppets to demonstrate appropriate eye contact and voice volume. Keep asking your child what he or she thinks of the puppet that didn’t use the skill and how he or she would react to that puppet.

Often the main problem is that children simply do not realize how they are coming across to others. The more you can get them to experience what it is like to interact with someone who has poor skills, the better. Pointing out that children who do not use social skills very well also tend to be less popular, and that learning to use these skills well will help in making friends, may help to motivate your child.

Practicing Body Language and Conversation Skills

Once you have explained to your child how a skill should be performed and the possible downsides of not using it, it’s time to start to practice using the skill. To begin with, it is best to practice in the safety of your home where things can’t go too wrong. And in the same way that you need to practice hitting a tennis ball in order to become a good tennis player, progress in social skills will only be made with regular practice. Ideally, your child should practice every day.

In the teaching of the simpler social skills, such as body language or conversation skills, we suggest that you practice using short conversations together. One fun way to do this is to develop a set of practice cue cards. Conversation topics are written onto the cue cards and prompt a short talk between you and your child during which each skill can be practiced. For example, one time you might use the cue cards to work on eye contact—your child would pick a card from the top of the pile and start a short conversation with you while making sure he or she kept good eye contact. On a different occasion, your child might pick another card and this time focus on increasing voice volume.

Here are some examples of cue cards that you might find useful:

• What is your favorite movie? … Now tell me what the film was about.
• What is your favorite book? … Now tell me all about the story in the book.
• Tell me about your favorite hobby.
• Pick someone in your family. What exactly does this person look like?
• Tell me about what you did last weekend.
• What is your favorite TV show? Explain to me why you like it.
• Ask me some questions about when I was a child.
• Ask me about people in my family.
• Ask me about where I would like to go for a holiday.

When you are teaching a new skill, it is important to stick to one skill at a time. Only move on to teaching the next skill once your child is able to perform the first one reasonably well. When you do move on to a new skill, you need to keep prompting your child to remember to use the body language and voice skills that he or she has already learned. For example, when you are teaching your child to ask questions, here are some prompts you can give: “Pick a sensible topic, make clear eye contact, use a friendly facial expression, and ask your question in a clear, loud voice.”

Also, spend some time talking with your child about how to choose appropriate topics for starting up a conversation. For example, topics might include a TV program, a sports team, the local news, movies, pets, hobbies, or asking about other people (e.g., their health, their opinion, their favorite activity). Together with your child, you might like to make a list of topics that children at school tend to talk about in their free time.

When your child has learned the basics of body language and conversation skills, you can move on to teach more complicated social skills relating to making friends and assertiveness. In addition to the teaching methods that we have already described, there are two additional techniques for coaching your child in more complex social skills. These teaching methods involve problem solving and role-play.

Problem Solving

Problem solving involves brainstorming as many solutions to a problem as possible and then choosing solutions or combinations of solutions that are most likely to work. Brainstorming can be great fun. For any particular social problem, there are many possible solutions. When you brainstorm with your child, you do not need to worry about how silly or successful different ideas are likely to be. The aim is get as many different responses as possible.

For example, imagine a situation in which your child is unfairly accused by the teacher of talking in class when he or she did not do this. Together with your child, you make a list of the possible actions that your child could take. Here is one list of possibilities that you might produce:

• Shout at the teacher that you did not do it.
• Explain calmly to the teacher that you did not do it.
• Keep quiet and say nothing.
• Tell the teacher who it was.
• Wait until the end of the class and then explain to the teacher that you did not do it.
• Storm out of the class crying.
• Sit quietly and cry.
• Tell a parent after school.

At this stage it is fine to have some really silly suggestions and some that clearly would not be very successful. Talk about each solution and about what might happen if your child tried each of these responses, and work out the advantages and disadvantages of the various alternatives. Then help your child to decide which solution is likely to produce the best results. In some instances your child might decide that a combination of different solutions, rather than just one of the actions, would be best.

One thing we have found helpful is to ask children to watch their classmates carefully to work out how these other young people deal with different situations. For example, you could ask your child to discover successful ways that classmates use to join in group activities. This “investigating” approach can be used to find solutions to many different social challenges.

Role-Play

Role-play involves creating an imaginary situation in which you and your child act out a scenario. The idea is for your child to practice his or her social skills by attempting to deal with a pretend situation. The aim in role-play is to make things as realistic as possible. Before children can start to practice in real-life situations, it’s best for them to practice in the safety of their home, with someone they trust (you).

Here are some examples of situations that you can role-play with your child. In the more complex situations, you may need to problem solve the scenario first. Choose from the following scenarios to role-play with your child:

• Starting a conversation. A new student starts in your class. You decide to ask this new child what his or her name is and where he or she comes from. (Parent plays the part of the new student.)
• Starting a conversation. The teacher asks you to do an errand with a student who you don’t know very well. You have to walk over to the school office together. (Parent plays the part of the other child.)
• Maintaining a conversation. You start at a new school and are sitting in the playground. Another student comes over and sits down in the next seat and asks you how you like the school. You have to answer and then ask a question. (Parent plays the part of the other child.)
• Asking to join in. The teacher instructs all the children in the class to find a group and help to produce a poster for the school open house. You look around and see that the other kids have already gotten into groups. Problem solve how you might go about joining one of the groups. Role-play how you might approach a group of classmates and ask to join in. (Parent plays the part of another child in a group.)
• Asking for information. A parent tells you to go into the local store and buy some tomato sauce. You can’t find it and have to ask the store clerk where it is kept. (Parent plays the part of the store clerk).
• Asking for information. You don’t hear what the teacher says when he or she gives an instruction in class. You have to ask the teacher to repeat the instruction. (Parent plays the part of the teacher.)
• Offering help. A classmate drops his or her homework papers all over the ground, and you decide to offer to help to pick them up. (Parent plays the part of the other child.)
• Giving a compliment. You want to give a compliment to the student sitting in the next seat in class. The other student has done some really excellent art work. (Parent plays the part of the other child.)
• Offering an invitation. You have won a couple of free tickets to go to the movies. Problem solve how you might invite someone from your class to go along to the movies. Then role-play the chosen response. (Parent plays the part of the other child.)
• Offering an invitation. You have a birthday party coming up. Brainstorm how you might go about inviting some classmates or other children. Then role-play how to offer the invitation. (Parent plays the part of a classmate.)
• Offering help. A classmate has forgotten his or her lunch, and you decide to offer half of your sandwich. (Parent plays the role of the child who has forgotten his or her lunch.)
• Owning up. You borrow a ball from a kid on your street and then lose it. Brainstorm possible solutions to this problem and decide upon the best solution. Imagine that you decide to tell the other child about having lost the ball and explain that you have brought a new ball to replace it. Role-play this situation. (Parent plays the part of the other child.)
• Apologizing. You drop your parents’ favorite plate in the kitchen, and it breaks. You are clearing up the pieces when one of your parents walks in. Brainstorm this situation and work out the best solution. Imagine that you decide to apologize to your parent and role-play this scenario. (Parent plays the part of the parent.)
• Asking for information. Your teacher assigns some work in class, and you do not understand what you are supposed to do. Brainstorm different solutions to this problem. You wait behind after class and ask the teacher to explain. (Parent plays the part of the teacher.)
• Saying no. Another child is trying to convince you to loan out your favorite possession. You are worried that he or she will break it and know that you should say no. (Parent plays the part of the child trying to borrow the item.)
• Sticking up for yourself. A parent yells at you for breaking a window, but you didn’t do it. Brainstorm possible solutions to this problem and decide upon the best solution. Imagine that you decide to explain that you did not do it. Role-play this situation. (Parent plays the part of the parent.)
• Dealing with teasing and bullying. Specific strategies are discussed later in this chapter in the section, “Dealing with Teasing and Bullying.”

Giving Feedback and Praise

When children are learning new skills, they can only improve if they’re given feedback about whether their performance is correct or whether some changes need to be made. When children start to practice their new skills, they may not be very competent at first. It’s really important that you look for good things in their performance and give them plenty of praise for trying. They must not feel as if they’ve failed. You should praise early attempts even if they are doing only a little bit better; expect them to get better and better over time. In particular, you need to focus on the good things about your child’s performance and tell your child what he or she did well (e.g., “That was a great try. I really liked the way you smiled when you told me your name”). If you are giving feedback about something that needs improvement, this should be phrased in a gentle and encouraging way. For example, if your child is not making eye contact during a conversation, you could say, “Well done. I really liked the questions you asked. Now try that again and see if you can look at me just a little.”

Practicing in the Real World

Once your child is able to use these new social skills at home in practice sessions with you, he or she will need to practice them in real-life situations. It is important that you set some small homework tasks for real-life practice after each session. These tasks need to be simple and relatively easy to perform. There is no point in children trying something far too hard and then failing miserably. They will not be likely to try again in the future, and their worst fears will have come true. You might want to talk to your child’s teacher and explain to him or her about the program you are doing. The teacher might have some good ideas about very simple social tasks that your child could try. He or she might even organize some small group situations for your child where practice would be easier.

Some real-life tasks in which to practice specific body language or voice skills could include the following:

• Say good morning to the teacher.
• Say hello to a particular child (preferably pick a sociable, friendly child to begin with).
• Ask a question of a relative when he or she comes to visit.
• Practice asking questions with a brother or sister.
• Ask a particular child what his or her favorite TV show is.
• Ask a particular child whether he or she has any pets.

It is a good idea to organize these practices into a stepladder just like you are doing with your child’s feared situations.

Only one task should be set after each home practice session. It is helpful to write the task down on a card. The card should describe what the task is and with whom, where, and when it is to be performed. Then the card should have a space to record when the task was completed and any difficulties encountered. The practice cards can be used with most children over the age of seven, depending on reading and writing abilities. With very young children, you may need to prompt the practice of skills by attending playgroups or activities with them.

It is also a good idea to prepare children for ways of handling situations in the event that they do not work out well. For example, it can be devastating to ask to join in a group for the first time only to be rejected by the group. You need to prepare children to use their detective thinking to handle things if their early attempts are not very successful. It is also important for you to help children set realistic goals that are within their capabilities. Many anxious children will be only too ready to interpret a reasonable attempt as failure. If possible, you might want to ask the help of a teacher who can prompt your child on the first couple of occasions. Teachers may also be able to observe from a distance and increase the chance of a successful outcome by discreetly arranging the situation.

Putting Social Skills and Anxiety Management Skills Together

Once your child begins to practice these skills in real-life situations, it is important to remember that this part of the social skills program should fit together with the anxiety management methods that your child has learned, including detective thinking and stepladders. In many cases learning to deal with new social situations should become part of your child’s stepladder. Your child should not be pushed to tackle a social situation when it is still too difficult for him or her, though. If a particular social skill is still too difficult, remember to break this goal down into smaller, simpler steps. For example, if your child is working on the skill of eye contact, a mini-stepladder might look like this:

Goal: To look a person in the eyes while doing the following tasks

1. Talk to my teacher for thirty seconds; look at her at least three times.
2. Order myself a takeout meal and look at the person when I order.
3. Talk to my neighbor for two minutes and keep good eye contact with her.
4. Ask the gym teacher to open the sports cupboard during recess; look at him while asking.
5. Talk for five minutes to the basketball coach; make eye contact.

In addition, many of the stepladders that you and your child have planned will include social contacts. It is very important to remind your child to use these opportunities to practice his or her social skills.

Creating Social Opportunities

In addition to teaching social skills, parents can help by setting up opportunities for children to practice their social skills. Anxious children often avoid places such as clubs where children have the chance to interact with each other. For example, many anxious children protest at the thought of going to a social or activity club, church groups, study groups, chess clubs, or sports clubs. It is a good idea to make a list of all of the social clubs and activities for young people in your area. Libraries, government services, the phone book, or the Internet might provide some of this information. Together with your child, you can work out which club or activity would be of greatest interest. You may find quite a bit of resistance to the idea from your child. However, it is really worth encouraging your child to attend events where he or she would be with other children. You might be able to help by arranging contacts with another family whose child belongs to a particular group. Remember, if it seems too frightening for your child to do this, then it is a useful thing to do. Create a stepladder with the club or group at the top and break it down into smaller steps.

Explaining Social Skills to Children

You have read about ways of developing your child’s social skills. Ultimately, the goal is for children to be able to act confidently when they need to; this is the culmination of learning to use good social skills. To explain to children the difference between good and poor social skills, compare assertive behavior with unassertive (too weak) or aggressive (too strong) behaviors. Even if you find that your child is confident in all areas of social skill, awareness of the differences between assertive, passive, and aggressive behaviors, and some practice in using assertiveness when needed, is useful.

In this section, all of the basic social skills are summarized by seven prompting words: “eyes,” “posture,” “voice,” “content,” “feelings,” “appearance,” and “behavior.” This makes it easier for children to focus on one aspect of assertiveness at a time until they are ready to put them all together. Remember that these skills progressively build on each other, so if your child is weak in the areas of body language or voice quality, you should focus on these first before working on conversation, friendship, and high-level assertiveness skills such as standing up for yourself. The following table—Passive, Aggressive, and Assertive Actions— summarizes some of the observations that children may make about assertive, passive, and aggressive ways of behaving toward people.

Just as when they are learning basic social skills, children should practice behaving assertively first in role-play and then in real life. The more practice they have at behaving assertively, and the more praise they get for choosing to interact that way, the more likely it is that your child will be able to interact with others effectively.

Dealing with Teasing and Bullying

Sadly, anxious children who are quiet, unassertive, and possibly awkward can sometimes become a target for bullies. Luckily, most anxious children are not teased or bullied but, if they are, this can really add to their worries and can lead to poor self-esteem and depression. If you discover that your child is being teased or bullied, acting quickly and calmly to help your child deal with the problem will be very important.

How to React as a Parent

Bullying and teasing are an unfortunate part of the reality of childhood. As a parent, your first instinct when hearing about bullying will probably be to get angry and you will want to step in and see that the bully is appropriately punished. However, this will not necessarily stop your child from being teased in the future, and it probably won’t make your child feel better about him- or herself. When you realize your child is being teased or bullied, you need, first of all, to show concern and sympathy for your child—he or she may not want you to do anything (yet), but may just want to talk it through. Do not let your hurt, pride, or anger get in the way of helping your child to solve his or her problem. Make sure you give your child permission to swear and say things that he or she would not normally be allowed to say at home so that he or she can talk about all that is happening. Talking about it will help to take the hurt and shame out of the teasing.

Often, you will need to help your child to work out whether the other child is trying to be friendly and fooling around (even though that child’s behavior has been hurtful) or whether the other child is being cruel. If it’s the former, then you need to help your child to learn to laugh along or to be honest that the teasing has upset him or her (in other words—to be assertive). If it’s deliberate cruelty, then you need to help your child to work out a different way of reacting so that he or she can take control of the bully’s game.

It is important to involve school personnel if your child is not able to stop the teasing within a short space of time or if the bullying is in any way physical. Most schools have bullying policies—give the school a chance to implement their policy but ask when you should check back with them, and do so. Be persistent but never accuse any person of being incompetent or uncaring—it will not help your child’s situation. Expect the school to take action but do not be surprised if they suggest changes for your child, including how your child interacts with other children. Although teasing and bullying should not take place and the responsibility for stopping it is with the bully, bullies choose easy targets—that is, those children who are not assertive and who get upset or angry when teased. By teaching your child to outsmart the bully, you are providing him or her with constructive strategies for self-protection.

How to Outsmart a Bully

Children can use these four approaches to outsmarting a bully:

1. Children need to talk about the teases until they don’t hurt anymore. By making jokes out of the teases, unkind words can lose their power. Your child can also use detective thinking to establish if the tease is true or not. If it is true, a child can problem solve how to fix the situation. If it is not true, he or she will realize that there’s no need to believe the tease—the bully is wrong.
2. Children also need to stay close to a sympathetic audience such as friendly children or teachers. It can take some planning to work out who will be sympathetic or, for example, how to stay close to others when walking home (children might need to change their route slightly). One clever way to get attention is to make the bully make more noise by saying, “Sorry I didn’t hear you; can you say that a bit louder?” “I still can’t hear you,” and so on until the bully has to shout the tease. When the bully shouts, it will probably get him or her in trouble, or it might get other children to step in.
3. Your child’s motto needs to become—“Do something different.” Bullies tease and push to get the typical reaction of fear, sadness, or anger from their victims. Doing anything that shows the bully that the tease hasn’t bothered your child will take all of the fun out of teasing. Brainstorming ways of doing things differently and practicing those differences can be helpful in building your child’s confidence. For example, a child might try to ignore the bully, laugh at him- or herself (it is usually not a good idea to laugh at the bully), hum to him- or herself, or point out how pretty the sun is today.
4. Rather than reacting to the tease in an emotional way, children can develop clever comebacks. For example if a bully says, “You’re a fat pig,” rather than yelling, “I am not, you *!@$,” a child could respond, “Gosh, I was aiming for ‘enormous elephant’ this week; I’ll have to keep trying.” Such a response is going to confuse the bully enough to make time for the child to move out of the line of fire. It is very important that your child is not nasty, rude, or aggressive to the bully since this might simply make the situation worse. Rather, your child can try to diffuse the situation and show the bully that what was said doesn’t hurt (even if at first it does).
5. Using these last two techniques takes practice and planning. Even though you will probably find this very hard to do, one excellent practice is for you to pretend to be the bully and to yell out nasty things to your child who can then practice a new way of reacting or a new comeback until he or she is able to do this easily. Once your child can do these things without thinking, he or she can use them in real life.

IMPORTANT: If your child is having serious problems with teasing and bullying, you should consider seeking professional help on this issue.

Activities to Do with Your Child …

Children’s Activity 25: Why Be a Confident Person?

Talk to your child about why it is useful to be a confident person and about different ways of communicating. Have a look at the Passive, Aggressive, and Assertive Actions table earlier in this chapter and make a copy on a sheet of paper with the same rows and columns, but nothing written in the boxes. (There is also a blank copy in the workbook on the Internet at www.ceh.mq.edu.au/hyac.html.) Help your child to complete the table by writing in some of the ways they typically act when they need to act assertively and then go back and help them to write down some better ways of acting. If your child has trouble coming up with examples of these behaviors, try to get him or her to think of some times recently when they have been asked to do something they didn’t want, or wanted to ask a difficult favor of someone, and so on.

Children’s Activity 26: Using Assertive Behavior

You will already have an idea of what social skills your child needs to improve. Use a variety of situations to coach your child on using these particular skills and ultimately on being assertive. Role-play situations such as someone pushing in front of you in a line, a neighbor borrowing a bike without asking, asking someone where a product is in the supermarket, and seeing an older child picking on a younger child in the playground. You can also use the list of situations in the “Role-Play” section for further practice. As a first step, discuss the situation so that you and your child can come up with an ideal picture of that situation (that is, the way it would happen if someone was being assertive). Once this is worked out, role-play the solution. Make this fun—if your child has trouble seeing the right way to be assertive, have him or her role-play the worst possible solution (e.g., being passive) and then role-play the alternate (assertive) solution. Swap roles occasionally so that you can model good use of the skills. If the early social skills (like eye contact or voice volume) need work, try to role-play a couple of situations each day.

Children’s Activity 27: Outsmarting Bullies

Talk with your child about the different ways to outsmart a bully, including talking about it to someone you trust, getting an audience who may help if needed, doing something differently than you would normally, and developing clever comebacks that you can say to diffuse a situation. You will need to give your child examples of comebacks such as, “Tease: You’re a jerk. Comeback: Only on Tuesdays.” “Tease: You’re fat. Comeback: Don’t be ridiculous—I’m enormous.” “Tease: Four-eyes. Comeback: Wish I had four eyes; then I wouldn’t need these glasses.”

When giving examples of comebacks, have your child say a tease and then you give a comeback. Hopefully your child will laugh. Ask your child to think of some things that have been said to him or her (or to friends) as teases. Then work together to come up with appropriate comebacks that could be used as responses if that is said to your child again. Your child will need to practice using these comebacks in different situations before trying it with a bully. You could even practice a tease a day: you pop up every so often with the tease, and your child responds with the comeback. You could pop the tease in while eating dinner, traveling in the car, or watching TV. At first say it in a lighthearted manner, slowly increasing the severity of your tone as your child gains confidence with responding to each tease. Once he or she sounds confident and can say it instantly, have your child practice at school.

If your child is being bullied or teased, help him or her to apply the outsmarting-bullies tactics to the unique situation, give your child the opportunity to practice reacting differently at home, and then have him or her try at school. Before your child tries the new approach, it can be helpful to discuss what to do if the bully doesn’t back off. A good attitude is that if at first you don’t succeed, try again—with small changes to the plan. However, it is important to remember that if the teasing doesn’t stop, or if it escalates into physical bullying, the school and professional help need to be involved.

Children’s Practice Task 7: Assertive Behavior and Continued Practice

In addition to continuing to work on stepladders (for which you should discuss and plan steps for the week ahead) and practicing other anxiety management skills as opportunities arise, your child should make an effort to practice assertive behavior, either in role-play or real life. It can be helpful to create a checklist that reminds your child of what assertiveness looks and sounds like to encourage him or her to concentrate on the behaviors that he or she most needs to improve in terms of social skills.

Chapter Highlights

In this chapter, you and your child learned …

• Social skills are important, and children need to develop certain types of social skills to be successful.
• Social skills build on each other, and children need to know basic skills such as eye contact before they can successfully learn more difficult skills such as starting a conversation or giving a compliment.
• There are different ways of teaching social skills, such as discussing appropriate skills, and using modeling and role-play. The latter can be a good way to teach children who have more extensive difficulties.
• There are differences between passive, aggressive, and assertive behavior.
• A person looks and behaves a certain way when being assertive.
• There are different ways of outsmarting bullies, including talking to reduce the hurt, staying close to friendly children and adults, planning ways to react differently when teased or bullied, and learning some clever comebacks to use in response to a tease.

Your child will need to do the following:

• Complete the children’s activities with the help of a parent or other adult.
• Practice behaving assertively in everyday situations or, for children who struggle more extensively with social skills, practice one new social skill at a time using role-plays at home and then in the real world.
• Continue to work on stepladders and continue to practice other anxiety management skills such as realistic thinking and problem solving. (Your child should be quite a way up a few of his or her stepladders by now.)