Teenagers and Social Skills
'Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.'
- Helen Keller
Social skills consist of the ability of an individual to make and keep friends, to share and cooperate, to work collaboratively in a group, to be assertive and to be confident and feel good about him or herself.
The following section discusses some of the social skills you can help develop in your teenager, as well as ways to help your teenager cope with some of the pressures of being part of a social group.
Friendship and peer groups
Friendship is important
Friendships play an important role in how students cope at school and are an important part of your teenager’s network of support. Students need friends to share both the fun times and the tough times. Friends can be there to celebrate and share in success, but also to provide encouragement and support needed to deal with challenges.
What is a peer group?
A peer group is conceived as a small group of fairly close friends of a similar age, sharing the same activities.
These peer groups are characterised by trust, self disclosure and loyalty. One major factor at work during adolescent development is they are showing a sense of being a separate person. Another factor is the developmental change that helps adolescents to see situations from another person's point of view.
Peers and friendships are very important to adolescents.
- Friendships provide opportunities to develop conflict resolution skills. Peers can learn how to end a fight and still remain friends.
- Peers provide fun and excitement through companionship and recreation.
- Peers also give advice to one another. They talk through lots of issues and problems with their friends.
- Peers provide opportunities for witnessing the strategies others use to cope with similar problems and for observing how effective they are.
- Loyalty is a valued trait in friendship. Peers are looking for loyal allies that can help them out at school or in their own neighbourhood.
Friendships also provide stability during times of stress or transition. It is helpful to peers to have a friend who is going through the same situations and can ease the anxieties of the times.
What happens when teenagers don't have friends?
Teenagers without friends tend to be more lonely and unhappy. They tend to have lower levels of academic achievement and lower self-esteem. As they get older, they are more apt to drop out of school and to get involved in delinquent activities.
Changing friendships
Friendships change as children move into their adolescent years.
- They tend to spend more time with their peers.
- They are also more mobile than when younger so more time is spent with peers without parental supervision.
- During the adolescent years, there will be increased contact with peers of the opposite sex.
- In the early adolescent years, small groups of friends or cliques are often formed which help to boost their confidence and give them a sense of identity.
- Another feature of the adolescent years is the emergence of crowds.
What are crowds?
These are large groups of students who gather together because they have characteristics that identify them with a particular crowd. They use crowds to figure out who to associate with. Crowds help adolescents sort peers into groups of people they would like to spend time with and those they wouldn't. Through crowds and cliques, adolescents show other people who they are.
As parents, it is important to encourage friendships among your teenagers. However, it is vital to know who your teenager's friends are and to communicate openly about changes in peer relationships and friendships.
Friendship and bullying
People who have good friends cope best with stress and situations in their lives because they have a caring group of people to turn to. Students with a good group of friends are less likely to be bullied than students with few friends. Most people who bully are not very brave and most likely would not try to bully a student who has a group of caring friends. A student who has good friendship skills is rarely alone, is generally happier and is less likely to be the target for bullying.
How can I help my teenagers make friends?- Ask your teenager to invite friends they would like to know better over to your house;
- Provide opportunities and an environment conducive to your teenager spending time after school and on the weekend with friends;
- Encourage your teenager to get to know their extended family (uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents), as well as family friends;
- Help your teenagers to make new friends outside of school through activities such as hobbies, sport and music; and
- Take your teenagers on holidays where there are teenagers of similar ages.
- Sometimes teenagers have problems with their friends and this can make them feel anxious, lonely or depressed. Those teenagers who have friends both in school and out of school have other groups to hang out with while the problems are being sorted out.
If your teenager is finding it difficult to join in or make friends, encourage them to practice their social skills with the family. You can help your teenagers learn how to approach other teenagers and ask to join in their conversations or games. Demonstrate how to ask questions, role-play how to be assertive and how to give and receive compliments.
Steps for joining in:
- Look for other teenagers who seem friendly and are by themselves or in small groups
- Stand and watch them for a while and find out who they are and what they are doing
- Wait for a good time to ask to join in e.g. a break in a game or a pause in the conversation
- Smile and introduce yourself and ask them if you can join in
- Making a positive comment about what they are doing sometimes helps to get the conversation started
- If they let you join in, start doing what they are doing and try to fit in with their activity or conversation.
What can I do to enhance my teenager's identity formation?
- Be accepting of your teenager and the differences between the two of you
- Clearly define limits to make it clear what will happen when rules are broken
- Be consistent in enforcing rules to make it clear that ‘norms’ are real and important
- Show respect for individuality by allowing your teenager's self-expression, reasoning with them, taking their point of view into account and negotiating with them.
Understanding peer influence
One of the main reasons young people give in to peer influence is because they are afraid they will lose their friendships and not fit in with the group.
Explain to your teenager that if peer influence is telling you to do something without questioning why, to do something you know is wrong, or to do something you feel uncomfortable about doing then you need to think carefully about your choices and decide whether this is really worth doing.
A good rule is if it makes you feel bad it is probably bad for you! If peer pressure is telling you to act in a generally appropriate way, to do something that seems right, or to do something positive that doesn’t hurt anyone, it is safe to say this will be all right.
Explain that going along with a healthy group of friends is not a bad thing, as long as following the group doesn't cause you to act without thinking about how you really feel about the situation yourself. In a situation where peer influence is good, individuals in the group will be acting as individual parts of a whole, each working with each other in a cooperative and supportive way.
Positive peer pressure
The ability to develop healthy friendships and relationships with peers depends on a teenager’s self-identity, self-esteem and self-reliance.
At its best, peer pressure can mobilise your teenager's energy, motivate for success and encourage your teenager to conform to healthy behaviour. Positive peers can and do act as positive role models demonstrating appropriate social behaviours. Positive peers often listen to others concerns as well as accept and understand the frustrations and challenges associated with being a teenager.
Negative peer pressure
The need for acceptance, approval and belonging is vital during the teen years. Teens who feel isolated or rejected by their peers (or in their family) are more likely to engage in risky behaviours in order to fit in with a group. In such situations, peer pressure can damage good judgment and encourage risk-taking behaviour, drawing a teenager away from the family and positive influences and luring them into dangerous activities.
Many students tease their peers to go along with the crowd, but feel uncomfortable with their own behaviour.
A powerful negative peer influence can motivate a teenager to make choices and engage in behaviour that his or her values might otherwise reject. Some teenagers will risk being grounded or losing their parents' trust just to try and fit in with their peers. Sometimes, teenagers will change the way they dress, their friends, their values or create new values, depending on the people they hang around with.
Parent Points - Teenage friendship choices
If you are worried about your teenager’s friendship choices here are some suggestions:
|
No matter what kind of peer influence your teenager faces, he or she must learn how to balance the value of going along with the crowd (connection) against the importance of making good decisions (independence). You must always ensure your teenager knows that he or she is loved and valued as an individual at home.
Resilience
What is resilience?
Resilience is our ability to cope with changes and challenges and to cope in difficult times.
Building resilience
There are many changes for students when moving to secondary school. They may encounter problems relating to pressure from peers, changing relationships with parents, increasing responsibilities, the demands of study and coming to terms with their body changes and sexuality.
Most students cope well with these changes, but some don’t cope as well. They may experience emotional problems, such as anxiety, depression, loneliness and stress. While we can’t stop the changes or avoid the challenges involved in the transition, we can provide our teenagers with the skills and support to deal with them.
Skills to cope
Resilient people have confidence in themselves. When in difficult situations, they think about what could go wrong and prepare ahead of time. They have ways to cope with stress, they feel good about themselves and how they cope with life. Resilient people are good problem solvers, can think through situations and decide on the best action.
Support
Resilient people have at least one caring adult and other good role models in their lives. They get support and ideas about how to cope from these role models.
Self-esteem
Resilient teenagers feel good about themselves and how they cope with life. They take responsibility for their actions and think positively about themselves. Self-esteem grows out of dealing with both success and failure, and from learning to face challenges rather than avoiding them. Teenagers can survive and grow.
Self-esteem is the way we feel about ourselves.
We compare how we see ourselves in all areas of our life with what is important to us.
Healthy self-esteem is about accepting yourself as you are and feeling comfortable with yourself.
Low self-esteem is about wishing you were different or wishing you were someone else.
What do we know about self-esteem and bullying?
Teenagers with a high self-esteem may have experienced bullying. However, those with low self-esteem say they are bullied more often, have higher levels of stress as a result of being bullied and suffer from more harmful health effects from this stress.
Some teenagers may bully others to increase their own self-esteem. Teenagers with high self-esteem are more likely to support and defend other teenagers who are bullied.
Parent points – Self-esteem What can I do to help my teenagers develop their self-esteem?
|
Optimistic Thinking
When used together with social skills and problem-solving skills, optimistic thinking (positive thinking) helps teenagers face the challenges of growing up and going to secondary school.We know that problems and difficulties are a part of life. What is important is how teenagers respond to those problems and challenges. Optimistic teenagers are willing to have a go, even if it means they might not succeed. They persist when things get tough. Teenagers who are pessimistic (negative thinkers) are less willing to have a go and if they face a setback or failure, they’re easily discouraged and are more likely to give up. Optimistic teenagers are more hopeful about the future, have higher self-esteem and are more likely to succeed in what they put their mind to.
Positive thinking and self-talk
A lot of people think their feelings come from the problems they face. They think the problem causes their feelings. However, it is not just the things that happen to us, such as getting yelled at, that makes us feel bad. It is what we say to ourselves (self-talk) in the situation that is the most important step.
Sometimes we tell ourselves helpful things and sometimes we tell ourselves things that are not helpful. To build your self-esteem you must work on getting rid of your negative thoughts and replacing them with more helpful and positive thoughts.
Help your teenagers to challenge their negative thoughts by suggesting that they:
- Ask themselves 'Is this true of me?', or am I making it seem more than it is, e.g. 'I am not that hopeless.'
- Think of things that prove this is not necessarily true, e.g. 'I passed my last test and I did well last term.'
- Try to come up with a more helpful thought or way of looking at the situation, e.g. 'I will do my best because last time I did a test that was good enough to pass.'
Parents can show teenagers how to challenge their negative thoughts by talking through their own problems out loud and role modelling how to find more helpful and positive thoughts for a situation.
'Why should I bother? You know they won't choose me.' 'What's the point? I'll never make the team.'
'Why are you making me go? You know I won't have fun.'
Teenagers with pessimistic attitudes tend to give up easily, believe anything they do won't make a difference and assume they won't succeed. Sadly, they rarely see the good, wonderful things of life. They dwell instead on the negative bad parts and often find only the weakness in themselves: 'I'm so dumb, why study?' 'Nobody's going to like me, why bother?' This trend is increasing and a teenager today is ten times more likely to be seriously depressed compared to a teenager born in the first third of this century. So what's a parent to do?
One of the hardest parts of being a parent is when your teenager isn't happy. But teenagers are not born pessimistic. Research shows a large part of this attitude is learned along the way. Parents can help their kids become more optimistic and this can dramatically increase the likelihood of your son or daughter's long-term happiness.
Here are tips
- Eliminate all the negatives you can.
Start by doing what you can: cut out the sources that might be making your teenager’s pessimism worse.
Why not reduce the terrifying news on TV? Stop talking about the bad stuff on the front page of the paper; listen to your own negative talk and curb it; monitor the negative musical lyrics your kid is hearing. Where once those tragic and terrifying world events seemed so far away or only printed words in the newspaper, they are now constantly on our TVs and internet screens. So be aware of what you can control.
- Look for the positive.
Here are a few things you can do to accentuate the positive:
- Start nightly ‘good news reports’: each family member can report something good that happened to them that day.
- Share optimistic stories. The world is filled with examples of individuals who suffered enormous obstacles but didn't cave into pessimistic thinking. Instead they remained optimistic and kept at their dreams until they succeed. Look out for examples to share with your kids.
- Confront pessimistic thinking.
Don't let your teenager get trapped into negative thinking. Help your teenager to tune into pessimistic thoughts and learn to confront them.
Here are a few tips:
- Point out negative thoughts. Create a code—such as pulling on your ear or touching your elbow—that only you and your teenager are aware of. The code means they’ve made a negative comment.
- Count negative thoughts. Help your teenager count their pessimistic comments for a set time period: 'For the next few minutes listen how many times you say negative things.'
- Balance pessimistic talk.
One way to prevent your teenager's pessimistic thinking is by providing a more balanced view. If you use the strategy enough, your teenager will use it to help prevent pessimistic talk.
Here are a few possibilities:
- Your teenager won't go to her friend's birthday because she thinks no one likes her. Offer a more balanced view: 'If Jess didn't like you, you'd never have been invited.'
- Your teenager blows her math test exclaiming that she's stupid. 'You're good in history and art. Meanwhile, let's figure out how to improve your maths.'
- Deal with mistakes optimistically.
Negative thinkers often give up at the first sign of difficulty and don’t recognise that mistakes are a fact of life.
Tips to help teenagers keep a more optimistic outlook to setbacks are:
- Stress that it's okay to make mistakes. Give kids permission to fail so they can take risks.
- Admit your mistakes. It helps teenagers to recognise that making mistakes happens to everyone.
- Call it another name. Optimists call mistakes by other names: glitch, blooper, etc., so rename it!
- Encourage positive speculation.
Help your teenagers think through possible outcomes of any situation. They’ll be more likely to have a realistic view of the situation before making any decision and less likely to utter a negative one.
- Ask a 'what if?' kind of question to help your teenager think about what might happen.
- List pros and cons of any choice to help your teenager weigh the positive and negative outcomes.
- Name the worst thing that could happen if they followed through so they can keep a realistic perspective on the situation.
- Acknowledge a positive attitude.
Do be on the alert for those times your teenager does utter optimism.
If you're not looking for the behaviour, you may well miss those moments when your teenager is trying a new positive approach. 'Kara, I know how difficult your spelling tests have been. But saying you think you'll do better was being so optimistic. I'm sure you'll do better because you've been studying so hard.'
The world really is a wonderful and hopeful place. We just need to take the time and point out all the positives parts to our teenagers. After all, this is their world, and the habits they learn now will last them a lifetime.
