Parents can teach social understanding

Getting along with others requires knowledge of certain rules and expectations. That is the easy part. The harder part is knowing how to truly connect with others.

Lucy Daniels Center teachers and mental health clinicians have long emphasized the importance of helping children understand their feelings and the reasons for their feelings. Because our actions are on the basis of our feelings, children who understand what they are feeling and the reasons that they are having these feelings will understand their behaviors! Children can only understand other people’s words and actions – their behaviors – when they have the ability to imagine the feelings that someone else might be having, and the reasons for those feelings. Therefore, self understanding and social understanding go hand in hand.

A recent research study from the University of Sussex has shown the wisdom of helping children learn about feelings and the reasons they have those feelings. Researchers with the study – which was reported in the May 8, 2009, issue of Science Daily – found that the way that mothers talk to their children when they are young has a lasting effect on children’s social skills. Children whose mothers often talked to them about people’s feelings, beliefs, wants, and intentions, developed better social understanding than children whose mothers did not include conversations, the researchers found. "Although its relationship to behaviour is complex, social understanding is an essential skill for interacting with others both at work and at play," the researchers said. "And the findings of this study suggest that children who experience lots of mental state talk in their early years get the best start for developing this skill.”

So: parents, explain your feelings and intentions, and if it is clear, the feelings and intentions of others. If your child sees you mutter under your breath, you could say: “I am angry with myself for dropping the cup” and you have given your child a lesson in how your action (muttering) fits with your emotions (anger) and reasons for the anger (I was upset with myself.) The examples are endless, it is really not that difficult, and the rewards will be significant.

You'll find more information on related topics in previous Lucy Daniels Columns in Carolina Parent and online. Also check out Raising Considerate Children, or, for a pdf downloadable version, visit http://lucydanielscenter.org/page/raising-considerate-children.

– Mental Health Matters! is written by the Lucy Daniels Center for Early Childhood in Cary and posted on the Carolina Parent Magazine's website, the Triangle's family resource - in print for over 21 years!  And online at www.carolinaparent.com.