Latest / Raising Daughters / Providing Social Skills That Girls Are Lacking Today

Transcript

Providing Social Skills That Girls Are Lacking Today · Raising Daughters

0:13
Speaker 1: Hello friends, Doctor Tim Jordan right back here with you
0:16
Speaker 1: with the brand new podcast. I've been working with girls
0:19
Speaker 1: for a long time, thirty five plus years in my
0:22
Speaker 1: counseling practice, by weekend retreats, my summer camps. I have
0:27
Speaker 1: a high school group that meets every two weeks. So
0:30
Speaker 1: I feel like I have the pulse of what's going
0:33
Speaker 1: on for kids, and well I'm gonna talk about today
0:36
Speaker 1: is some social skills because there's so much energy around
0:40
Speaker 1: digital media and social media and kids on their phones
0:44
Speaker 1: too much, and I think sometimes the solution has been
0:49
Speaker 1: just take everything away, which I don't disagree with. I
0:53
Speaker 1: don't think girls are ready for phones and social media
0:56
Speaker 1: till they're at least sixteen with a really good track record,
0:59
Speaker 1: which I've talked to about in previous podcasts. And and
1:04
Speaker 1: I think what just taking something away sometimes isn't valuable
1:09
Speaker 1: unless you replace it with something. And I think that's
1:14
Speaker 1: a place where we're kind of falling short. We're not
1:17
Speaker 1: allowing our kids to spaces to develop good social skills.
1:22
Speaker 1: There's lots of, you know, policies now to ban phones
1:25
Speaker 1: and schools, and what I feel is I've talked to
1:29
Speaker 1: girls a lot. I did a podcast with some girls
1:32
Speaker 1: interviewing them, and they talked about how socially awkward they
1:35
Speaker 1: feel because they spend so much time looking at screens.
1:41
Speaker 1: I'll put a link to that past podcast with the
1:43
Speaker 1: interview with the girls, who was fascinating. You know. I
1:49
Speaker 1: heard one time somebody said that they wondered what their
1:51
Speaker 1: parents did to fight boredom before the internet. He said,
1:55
Speaker 1: I think I'll ask my eighteen siblings, but they don't
1:58
Speaker 1: know either. So somehow, or rather, we in the old days,
2:01
Speaker 1: when we didn't have all these electronics, we managed. And
2:05
Speaker 1: not only did we manage, but we managed I think
2:07
Speaker 1: a lot better socially than this generation. You know, a
2:11
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of people look for their dating
2:13
Speaker 1: it looking for their dates on apps. No need to
2:17
Speaker 1: make eye contact. It's more impersonal. I heard about this
2:22
Speaker 1: man one time, this roman one time. She said. I
2:25
Speaker 1: once gave my husband the silent treatment for an entire week.
2:28
Speaker 1: At the end of that week, he declared, Hey, we're
2:30
Speaker 1: getting along really well lately, aren't we. It's easy to
2:34
Speaker 1: say that when when you're having a salient treatment. But but, but,
2:38
Speaker 1: but I want to give you some examples of things
2:41
Speaker 1: I do with girls. I think helps them develop social skills,
2:46
Speaker 1: understanding empathy for each other, learning how to understand each other,
2:51
Speaker 1: how to communicate, how to connect because I think they're
2:54
Speaker 1: lacking those skills today a lot of them feel so
2:56
Speaker 1: socially awkward. One of the things that I've been doing
3:00
Speaker 1: for a long time. Oh, they're over thirty years our
3:03
Speaker 1: camps this summer, I think are going to be I
3:05
Speaker 1: think it's thirty six years old. We can retreats a
3:08
Speaker 1: year older than that. And there's an exercise we started
3:11
Speaker 1: doing way way way back in the day. We call
3:14
Speaker 1: it cross the Line, and we still use it in
3:17
Speaker 1: our weekend retreats. I have a retreat coming up for
3:19
Speaker 1: middle school girls in a few weeks, and we'll I
3:21
Speaker 1: think we're gonna do it. On the first night. We
3:24
Speaker 1: put a rope down the center of the of the
3:26
Speaker 1: room and we have all the girls stand on one
3:29
Speaker 1: side of it, and we tell them we're gonna throw
3:31
Speaker 1: out some situations and then depending upon how you feel about,
3:35
Speaker 1: you'll either cross the line or you won't. Like For example,
3:38
Speaker 1: we might say cross the line if you have siblings,
3:41
Speaker 1: So if you have a brother or sister, you would
3:43
Speaker 1: cross the line. No talking. It's a totally silent exercise.
3:50
Speaker 1: We want them to be honest, check in with themselves,
3:53
Speaker 1: is it fit for me or not? And sometimes or
3:56
Speaker 1: oftentimes at the beginning, we'll get them easy ones like
3:58
Speaker 1: cross the line, if you have a sibling, across the line,
4:02
Speaker 1: if you hate school, across the line, if school's ever stressful.
4:06
Speaker 1: But then we start getting a little bit more personal.
4:09
Speaker 1: Cross the line, if you have an annoying sibling, cross
4:12
Speaker 1: the line. If you've ever been left out by your friends,
4:15
Speaker 1: cross the line, if you ever get anxious, across the line,
4:19
Speaker 1: there's ever any fighting in your home. So we start
4:23
Speaker 1: getting more and more personal, if you will, But it
4:26
Speaker 1: gives them a chance to see who they can relate
4:29
Speaker 1: to without having to talk about it. So if we
4:32
Speaker 1: said cross the line, if you've ever felt excluded by
4:34
Speaker 1: your friend group, In most groups of grade school, middle school,
4:38
Speaker 1: or high school girls, three fourths at least of the
4:41
Speaker 1: girls cross the line, and most of them feel like, wow,
4:44
Speaker 1: I thought I was the only one. And again they
4:47
Speaker 1: don't have to talk about They just watch and they
4:49
Speaker 1: start noticing, Wow, I have more in common with people
4:52
Speaker 1: than I thought. I'm not alone, I'm not the only one.
4:57
Speaker 1: So they have a lot of shared experiences, shared feelings.
5:02
Speaker 1: I encourage teachers to do this at the beginning of
5:04
Speaker 1: the school year with their new classroom, so the kids
5:07
Speaker 1: start to get to know each other right from the start,
5:10
Speaker 1: and to create a safe environment where it's okay to
5:13
Speaker 1: talk and to share and to be honest. There's no
5:17
Speaker 1: other exercises I do. We call it pairing off with opposites.
5:21
Speaker 1: So to tell them to look around the room and
5:23
Speaker 1: to retreat. It's easy because most of them don't know
5:25
Speaker 1: most of them. But even in a classroom, you can say,
5:29
Speaker 1: find somebody in this circle, in this group that seems
5:33
Speaker 1: like the opposite of what, opposite of what you normally
5:37
Speaker 1: hang out with, somebody who's different than your friends. You
5:40
Speaker 1: just sort of notice that there's not a judgment, like
5:42
Speaker 1: they're bad or good. It's just like I usually hang out,
5:44
Speaker 1: people look or act a little bit different. And then
5:48
Speaker 1: once they sit down with this person who seems like
5:50
Speaker 1: they're not the kind of person I normally hang out with,
5:52
Speaker 1: we tell them you have ten minutes to find out
5:55
Speaker 1: all the things that you have in common, foods, experiences, family, friends, whatever,
6:03
Speaker 1: just everything you can think of. Keep going back and
6:06
Speaker 1: forth and to you figure out how many things you
6:08
Speaker 1: have in common. And then once we give them that
6:10
Speaker 1: ten minutes and the time is up, we all get
6:12
Speaker 1: back together and then the pairs share all the things
6:14
Speaker 1: that they found that they had in common, and surprising
6:18
Speaker 1: to most of them, they found a lot of things
6:22
Speaker 1: more than just the obvious like I'm into sports and
6:25
Speaker 1: you're not. But there's things like I love horses, or
6:30
Speaker 1: I love the beach foods I like to cook, blah
6:34
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah. There's just so many things, and
6:36
Speaker 1: that surprises them also because there are initial judgments about
6:40
Speaker 1: people are often wrong, judgments like I don't think we
6:44
Speaker 1: have much in common, so we probably wouldn't be friends.
6:47
Speaker 1: So that's a good exercise also for them to start
6:49
Speaker 1: breaking down the walls of actually, maybe I have more
6:52
Speaker 1: in common with people that I thought, and thus could
6:55
Speaker 1: connect with more people and more different kinds of people
6:57
Speaker 1: that I'm used to. We also have them sit down
7:01
Speaker 1: sometimes in groups and just with someone one on one
7:06
Speaker 1: and find out all the things that they have in common,
7:08
Speaker 1: not because they're an opposite person, just because it's it's
7:10
Speaker 1: nice to kind of figure out what do we have
7:12
Speaker 1: in common? And then they share those with the group,
7:15
Speaker 1: and then the group also gets to hear things that
7:17
Speaker 1: they have in common which they also may connect with,
7:21
Speaker 1: and something the group starts to see each other in
7:23
Speaker 1: different eyes, with different eyes, there's more we have in
7:27
Speaker 1: common than they're different, and more than meets the I.
7:32
Speaker 1: Sometimes we'll have them go find somebody in the group.
7:36
Speaker 1: This is on a retreat. Maybe you're one of our camps.
7:39
Speaker 1: Find a person in a group that you seem most like,
7:43
Speaker 1: someone who's similar to you, and some you know in
7:45
Speaker 1: the way that you that you've judged already, and then
7:48
Speaker 1: they go with that person then and they share why
7:50
Speaker 1: they picked each other. Find the person in this group
7:54
Speaker 1: who's different than your normal friends. Sit down with them
7:57
Speaker 1: and share why you picked each other. Find the person
8:01
Speaker 1: you'd most like to connect with in this group. Sit
8:04
Speaker 1: down and tell them why you'd most like to connect
8:06
Speaker 1: with them. Find the person in the group who seems
8:10
Speaker 1: really kind and safe to you. Sit down with them
8:14
Speaker 1: and share why they seem safe and kind to you.
8:18
Speaker 1: Sit down with someone. Find someone who most intimidates you,
8:23
Speaker 1: that's a tougher one right, sit down and tell them why.
8:28
Speaker 1: Find someone in the group who reminds you of someone.
8:32
Speaker 1: Find someone in the group and sit with them, somebody
8:35
Speaker 1: you've avoided so far this weekend or this this summer
8:38
Speaker 1: camp week and tell them why. Find the person in
8:43
Speaker 1: the group who you admire and want to be more like,
8:46
Speaker 1: and tell them why. And that that's another great icebreaker
8:51
Speaker 1: in the sense that again it breaks down that the
8:54
Speaker 1: barriers of we don't know each other, we don't really
8:57
Speaker 1: connect very well because we have so little in common.
9:00
Speaker 1: I feel so awkward. But when you start to show
9:03
Speaker 1: them that they're more similar than different, and you create
9:07
Speaker 1: that kind of a safe atmosphere, that's safe container, it's
9:11
Speaker 1: much easier for them to start connecting. It's not safe online.
9:17
Speaker 1: Even if they forget sometimes that that's not safe online,
9:20
Speaker 1: they realize pretty quick that there's a lot of people
9:23
Speaker 1: who are not online who have their best interest in mind.
9:26
Speaker 1: So it's national in person that you can trust these people.
9:31
Speaker 1: We also sometimes do an exercise we call it toe
9:33
Speaker 1: jam basketball. Toe jam stands for together we win jamboree,
9:40
Speaker 1: and we have them in small groups of maybe five girls,
9:45
Speaker 1: and they have a little basket, like a little waste basket,
9:48
Speaker 1: and we get each group a ball. I get a
9:50
Speaker 1: little tennis ball, and we mark out a distance of
9:54
Speaker 1: maybe about I guess about ten feet or so, and
9:57
Speaker 1: we tell them we're going to see who can make
9:59
Speaker 1: the most throws in thirty seconds. Everybody will get a
10:05
Speaker 1: turn and just work with your group and you'll keep
10:09
Speaker 1: your own scores. And then we mark off the spaces
10:11
Speaker 1: so it's equal. And then we give them a few
10:14
Speaker 1: minutes to brainstorm well how can we do this? And
10:17
Speaker 1: then we let we just let them go. And it's
10:21
Speaker 1: interesting because at first they do it very competitively. The
10:26
Speaker 1: first round, so somebody is shooting and the rest of
10:30
Speaker 1: them in that group, the other three or four girls,
10:32
Speaker 1: they're standing there kind of watching. The balls are bouncing everywhere,
10:35
Speaker 1: and most of the time most of them don't help out.
10:39
Speaker 1: They want to be the best, they want to have
10:40
Speaker 1: the highest score. So we do it for a while.
10:43
Speaker 1: Then we'll stop and say how's it going. And then
10:46
Speaker 1: we'll say, if if you want to be more supportive
10:50
Speaker 1: of each other and be a different kind of team,
10:54
Speaker 1: how much you do it different, Well, we might help
10:57
Speaker 1: each other. How would that look? Well, we would communicate
11:01
Speaker 1: things like, you know, there might be two people sitting
11:04
Speaker 1: by the basket who are rebounding, maybe somebody standing by
11:07
Speaker 1: the shooter, and we roll the balls back to them.
11:10
Speaker 1: They hand to the shooters so they don't have to
11:12
Speaker 1: do anything but look at the basket. The basket is
11:14
Speaker 1: a trash can you have sitting on the floor. They
11:17
Speaker 1: also usually learn to ask each shooter before they start,
11:21
Speaker 1: how do you want to be supported? You want a syelling, screaming, cheering,
11:25
Speaker 1: or do you want to be quiet? Just a few
11:27
Speaker 1: words of encouragement. Everybody's different. They start learning again, how
11:31
Speaker 1: do I support my friends, my classmates, my teammates. And
11:37
Speaker 1: they also learn that in this uber competitive environment where
11:43
Speaker 1: it's so much about being the best, being on the
11:45
Speaker 1: best teams, being on club teams, travel teams, national championships,
11:48
Speaker 1: that what might be more important that all of that,
11:51
Speaker 1: is being on a team, being in a system where
11:55
Speaker 1: there's cooperation, where people are concerned about you as well
11:59
Speaker 1: as them, else where people can work in harmony, work together,
12:04
Speaker 1: instead of always competing, always trying to be the best.
12:07
Speaker 1: It's not wrong to compete, it's not wrong to try
12:10
Speaker 1: your hardest. But I don't know, I don't like to
12:13
Speaker 1: sell energy around being the best, being number one, being
12:16
Speaker 1: on the best teams, winning championships, there's so much energy
12:19
Speaker 1: around the final result as opposed to there may be
12:22
Speaker 1: some things that are more important than that. The other
12:27
Speaker 1: thing we do with classrooms when my wife and negative,
12:29
Speaker 1: we have a program called Strong Girls, Strong World, where
12:33
Speaker 1: we go into classrooms and work with the classroom of
12:35
Speaker 1: say fifth grade girls or third grade girls or eighth
12:37
Speaker 1: grade girls or whatever. And one of the things that
12:40
Speaker 1: we'll do is we teach them how to run class
12:43
Speaker 1: meetings where they will sit down together and work things out.
12:49
Speaker 1: If we start at the beginning of the school year,
12:50
Speaker 1: we haven't set intentions for their class. What do you
12:53
Speaker 1: want to look like this year? How do you want
12:55
Speaker 1: your class to treat each other? What do you want
12:58
Speaker 1: the spirit to be? And so they'll set intent intentions
13:02
Speaker 1: like we want people to be kind, want people to
13:04
Speaker 1: be inclusive, et cetera, et cetera. So that's a really
13:07
Speaker 1: important process for them to sort of say, this is
13:10
Speaker 1: what we want. This isn't what the school wants. This
13:12
Speaker 1: isn't some post on the board that somebody sent from Washington,
13:16
Speaker 1: DC or something about this is how you're supposed to
13:18
Speaker 1: act in class. This is like, this is what we want,
13:22
Speaker 1: and we as a class is saying this is important
13:24
Speaker 1: to us. They also can use class meetings to do
13:28
Speaker 1: things like resolve conflicts that come up, which always do
13:31
Speaker 1: obviously they're kids, right, if there's a lot of complaints.
13:34
Speaker 1: Oftentimes in the schools we go to where there's complaints
13:37
Speaker 1: about the teams that recess, they're not fair and the
13:40
Speaker 1: same kids always win. So they talk about, well, if
13:43
Speaker 1: you don't like it, then how would you do it different?
13:46
Speaker 1: They talk to each other, they share with each other,
13:48
Speaker 1: they listen to each other, and then they bring to them.
13:51
Speaker 1: They go back and forth until they come up with
13:53
Speaker 1: a solution that works for the whole group, that in
13:56
Speaker 1: their minds, is more fair. And they talk about how
13:59
Speaker 1: they're going to follow up with each other and make
14:01
Speaker 1: sure they hold each other accountable. Incredibly important skills to
14:08
Speaker 1: sit down with your classmates, have open conversations, being honest,
14:13
Speaker 1: resolving conflicts peacefully, creating win win agreements, listening to each other,
14:18
Speaker 1: being empathetic. Gives them a sense of agency, like we
14:22
Speaker 1: have we have control over all this. It is not
14:24
Speaker 1: just the teachers are going to make this happen. We're
14:26
Speaker 1: responsible for each other. These are our agreements with each other,
14:30
Speaker 1: not the schools. Not the teacher. These are ours. If
14:34
Speaker 1: they have that sense of agency, they're much more likely
14:36
Speaker 1: to follow it. There's also a chance in those class
14:41
Speaker 1: meetings or other times to resolve conflicts face to face.
14:44
Speaker 1: They're lacking those skills. There's so much energy, you know,
14:48
Speaker 1: with and connecting online where you can just click somebody off.
14:52
Speaker 1: You don't need to resolve the conflict, right you can
14:54
Speaker 1: just you know, click somebody away. You don't, don't talk
14:56
Speaker 1: to him anymore, just to lead them from your from
14:59
Speaker 1: your from your list. But learning how to face someone,
15:04
Speaker 1: look them in the eye, and resolve a conflict. To
15:07
Speaker 1: let people know how you feel about something, what you want,
15:11
Speaker 1: then listen to how they feel about this situation, what
15:14
Speaker 1: they want. Then the two of you come together and say, well,
15:17
Speaker 1: how can we make this work for both of us.
15:19
Speaker 1: They create a solution where they both say that works
15:22
Speaker 1: for me. Again, invaluable skills that they all need. Social skills. Oftentimes,
15:30
Speaker 1: I think at home parents jump in and fix their
15:34
Speaker 1: sibling rivalry kind of problems. They'll let their kids solve
15:36
Speaker 1: it themselves, so they don't have those skills when they
15:40
Speaker 1: walk into school, And I think then oftentimes the school
15:43
Speaker 1: does it for them. Also, teachers do it for them,
15:45
Speaker 1: the principal, whomever. We don't teach them the skills and
15:48
Speaker 1: give them a chance to practice with support, that's what
15:54
Speaker 1: they need. So they have to be coached on how
15:58
Speaker 1: to stay calm, to be present, to listen empathetically, to
16:04
Speaker 1: find solutions. And there's no screen. This is face to face.
16:10
Speaker 1: I hope they can practice the same kind of skills
16:12
Speaker 1: at home with their siblings or with conflicts with their parents,
16:15
Speaker 1: conflicts with their teachers. They can roll play scenarios that
16:20
Speaker 1: they're experiencing a school at home, and their parents can
16:22
Speaker 1: give them some feedback about maybe ways that they've been
16:25
Speaker 1: trying to handle it in ways that are helpful, in
16:28
Speaker 1: ways that are helpful or appropriate back. Again, those are
16:33
Speaker 1: social skills that they tend to lack because they're spending
16:37
Speaker 1: so much time online. And you don't need to have
16:38
Speaker 1: those online. You just delete somebody, you just move on,
16:42
Speaker 1: You just scroll to the next person. The other thing
16:47
Speaker 1: I think our kids are missing out on, which would
16:49
Speaker 1: help a lot, is just having time to play outside
16:55
Speaker 1: with their friends, with neighborhood kids, with whomever, with no
16:59
Speaker 1: adults releasing them. So often adults get way involved. I
17:05
Speaker 1: heard a story one time about about these two sisters.
17:09
Speaker 1: One was five years old, the other was eight, and
17:13
Speaker 1: they were out playing on their own one day and
17:15
Speaker 1: the older sister fell into a well and she was
17:18
Speaker 1: down at the bottom and she couldn't climb up. So
17:21
Speaker 1: the little five year old found her rope that had
17:24
Speaker 1: a bucket, and she put it over the edge all
17:26
Speaker 1: the way down to the bottom, and then she pulled
17:29
Speaker 1: her sister out. It took her a long time. Her
17:32
Speaker 1: sister was a lot bigger. She was pulling and pulling,
17:35
Speaker 1: Her hands were sore, she started getting blisters in her hands.
17:38
Speaker 1: She kept going and going till finally her sister got
17:41
Speaker 1: over the edge and was saved. When they went back
17:45
Speaker 1: to the village, they told everybody what they had done,
17:47
Speaker 1: and nobody believed them. They all said, oh no, that
17:51
Speaker 1: she's too small. There's no way she could have pulled
17:54
Speaker 1: her big sister either. There's no way, and so fine.
17:57
Speaker 1: They said, let's go to the village wise person and
17:59
Speaker 1: asked them what what that person thinks. And when they
18:02
Speaker 1: relayed this story to the village wise person, that wise
18:06
Speaker 1: woman said to them, I believe the kids. They said why,
18:12
Speaker 1: and she said, because I believe that that girl could
18:14
Speaker 1: have done that because there was no adult there to
18:17
Speaker 1: say she couldn't. That's one of the things our kids
18:21
Speaker 1: are missing by not having just free time to play
18:25
Speaker 1: outside with their friends. I remember in the summertime, actually
18:30
Speaker 1: all year round, but I remember especially in the summer.
18:32
Speaker 1: Leaving our house. I had seven siblings. My mom was like,
18:35
Speaker 1: get out of here and don't come back to dinner, literally,
18:39
Speaker 1: and I remember being outside and with my brother was
18:42
Speaker 1: a bunch of guys in the neighborhood and we would
18:44
Speaker 1: walk to other neighborhoods, sometimes as much as a mile
18:46
Speaker 1: two miles away, looking for other groups of kids to
18:50
Speaker 1: play hockey in the street or baseball, and there was
18:53
Speaker 1: no adult to police us. I remember it was time
18:57
Speaker 1: to pick teams. We didn't all the adulta to come
19:00
Speaker 1: over and make the teams fair. One person on each
19:03
Speaker 1: team would go forward with a baseball bat and they
19:06
Speaker 1: throw it to one person would throw out the other one.
19:08
Speaker 1: They would catch you with one hand and the other
19:10
Speaker 1: one put a hand around on top the next The
19:13
Speaker 1: first time, we put it on top of that, on
19:15
Speaker 1: top of that, on top of that, and the top
19:16
Speaker 1: until the last person would put their hand over the
19:18
Speaker 1: knob and then they got to be the first person
19:21
Speaker 1: to pick a teammate. We figured things out, We policed ourselves,
19:30
Speaker 1: we refried ourselves, We took care of each other. It
19:33
Speaker 1: wasn't always perfect. There was fights, there was arguments, but
19:36
Speaker 1: we we fought that, we made up, and then we
19:38
Speaker 1: moved on. And I can't I think our kids are
19:42
Speaker 1: missing out and learning those kinds of social skills with
19:46
Speaker 1: each other out in the real world, on the street,
19:51
Speaker 1: in the woods, wherever you wherever your kids play, if
19:55
Speaker 1: they're allowed to. I remember my uh, my younger son
20:00
Speaker 1: one time was upset because his older brother, who's four
20:02
Speaker 1: years older. They were out in the backyard shooting hoops
20:06
Speaker 1: and the older older sons, three of his friends came
20:10
Speaker 1: over and they were playing basketball. My younger son wanted
20:12
Speaker 1: to play, and so they said sure, so they were playing,
20:15
Speaker 1: but he came in. He was upset because he said,
20:18
Speaker 1: they're not passing the ball to me, they're not letting
20:21
Speaker 1: me shoot. And I understood that because I had two
20:26
Speaker 1: older brothers growing up and I was the youngest one
20:29
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood group of guys. I remember feeling the
20:32
Speaker 1: same way sometimes, and I told my younger son, you
20:37
Speaker 1: have a choice. If you want to play with the
20:38
Speaker 1: big kids, then they're not always going to pass to you.
20:41
Speaker 1: They're just not. So you got to earn those passes.
20:46
Speaker 1: You have to learn how to work harder than them
20:48
Speaker 1: and hustle, and when they're inside doing other things or whatever,
20:52
Speaker 1: you need to be outside in the backyard shooting, practicing, practice,
20:56
Speaker 1: you're dribbling. I remember putting used to put chairs out
20:58
Speaker 1: on the on our backyard court when it was a corpse,
21:02
Speaker 1: just like a driveway. I would put chairs out there
21:04
Speaker 1: and I'd dribble around them, practicing, practicing, practicing, because I
21:09
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to play with the big kids.
21:13
Speaker 1: So I told my son, this is up to you.
21:15
Speaker 1: You can either not play, or if you're going to play,
21:20
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to learn to take your lumps and
21:21
Speaker 1: to try harder and to hustle and all those kinds
21:24
Speaker 1: of things. Those are invaluable lessons for kids. Who was
21:29
Speaker 1: invaluable for my son to learn how to take care
21:31
Speaker 1: of himself out there. All of your kids need to
21:34
Speaker 1: learn how to take care of themselves socially, beyond click
21:39
Speaker 1: and you know, deleting someone. They need to learn those
21:43
Speaker 1: skills of conflict resolution, how to talk to each other,
21:47
Speaker 1: how to ask for what they want, how to resolve
21:49
Speaker 1: conflicts peacefully. A lot of times when my wife and
21:54
Speaker 1: I give talks, will talk to parents about how much
21:57
Speaker 1: more freedom we used to have growing up than our
21:59
Speaker 1: kids do today, Like you know, being out out and
22:02
Speaker 1: about all day and riding riding our bikes miles down
22:06
Speaker 1: just down the street, going out in the woods and playing.
22:09
Speaker 1: We had bb guns and m eight's and cherry bombs
22:11
Speaker 1: blowing things up, and we had all kinds of freedoms.
22:14
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just about it being fun, even though
22:17
Speaker 1: it was amazingly fun. It's also about we learned a lot.
22:22
Speaker 1: We learned to fight and make up and move on.
22:26
Speaker 1: We learned to resolve conflicts. We learned to keep secrets
22:30
Speaker 1: just between the two of us. We learned to wait
22:33
Speaker 1: our turn, we learned to compromise. The leadership changed depending
22:38
Speaker 1: upon the sport or the situation. We learned how to win,
22:43
Speaker 1: we learned how to lose, and we grew closer to
22:46
Speaker 1: each other by having all that time together working those
22:49
Speaker 1: things out. We grew closer by doing, and that's something
22:55
Speaker 1: our kids are missing today and That's why I think
22:58
Speaker 1: their social skills are lacking. We blame social media, we
23:03
Speaker 1: blame phones. I think they have a huge part in that.
23:06
Speaker 1: And they can still learn those skills if we're willing
23:09
Speaker 1: to allow them to have more freedoms and to be
23:11
Speaker 1: outside and to allow them to solve their own fights.
23:15
Speaker 1: Can you can do some You can help, like siblings,
23:19
Speaker 1: resolve a conflict by having them work it out with you.
23:21
Speaker 1: They're kind of mediating, but then you slowly but surely
23:25
Speaker 1: back yourself out of that job. You So they learned
23:27
Speaker 1: that it's their job. It's their responsibility, not mom and dad,
23:31
Speaker 1: not teacher, not school counselor not coach, but the kids themselves.
23:39
Speaker 1: So my point here in this in this podcast today
23:44
Speaker 1: is that social skills are built little by little over time,
23:50
Speaker 1: but they need opportunities to do that on supervised time
23:55
Speaker 1: time where they're allowed to do those things on their
23:57
Speaker 1: own at schools and classrooms, like I said, class meetings,
24:02
Speaker 1: doing role plays and things where they get a chance
24:04
Speaker 1: to sort of practice, to learn language, to learn the
24:07
Speaker 1: skills because they don't have those when they walk into
24:11
Speaker 1: the building at school. They have to be taught same
24:15
Speaker 1: way with siblings. They need to be taught how to
24:17
Speaker 1: resolve conflicts, how to put their thoughts out there, how
24:20
Speaker 1: to resolve conflicts peacefully, how to create win win agreements,
24:25
Speaker 1: listening skills. They need to learn that they have more
24:28
Speaker 1: in common with people than they thought because they share.
24:32
Speaker 1: Because they start to learn to open up a little bit,
24:35
Speaker 1: they can learn how to create a safe environment. I
24:39
Speaker 1: think if they're given all those opportunities, like I've just
24:42
Speaker 1: talked about, then I think we've prepared them as best
24:46
Speaker 1: we can to make it out in the real world socially.
24:52
Speaker 1: But I think if they spend in an order amount
24:55
Speaker 1: of time in organize supervised sports, if they spend too
25:00
Speaker 1: much time on their devices, and then they're not gonna
25:02
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to learn those things, and so they're
25:05
Speaker 1: going to be deficient and they're going to have the
25:07
Speaker 1: same complaints those girls did that I interviewed in my podcast,
25:11
Speaker 1: which I will link in the podcast show notes of
25:14
Speaker 1: feeling so socially awkward and not knowing how to meet people,
25:19
Speaker 1: talk to people, et cetera. Don't let that be your kids,
25:24
Speaker 1: Don't let that be your your daughter. Give her those skills,
25:28
Speaker 1: give her a good head start at home. So that
25:30
Speaker 1: when she's at school, when she's on teams, et cetera,
25:32
Speaker 1: then she'll know how to take care of herself. I
25:38
Speaker 1: will be back here in a week with a brand
25:40
Speaker 1: new podcast. I will put a show note link R
25:44
Speaker 1: two from previous podcasts where I've done things like I
25:47
Speaker 1: told you they have to do with communication, the one
25:50
Speaker 1: with the girls who talked about being socially awkward. Those
25:53
Speaker 1: can be helpful sometimes just to add in extra pieces
25:55
Speaker 1: for these topics. I have some other things I want
25:59
Speaker 1: to talk about with this, but I want to keep
26:01
Speaker 1: these podcasts, you know, in a reasonable amount of time.
26:04
Speaker 1: So I'll have a probably a part two coming up
26:07
Speaker 1: sometime the next month about social skills, and you can
26:11
Speaker 1: look for that in the in the coming weeks. Go
26:14
Speaker 1: to my website at www dot d R Tim Jordan
26:18
Speaker 1: dot com and there you'll find my books, blogs, articles,
26:26
Speaker 1: we can retreat dates, summer camp week dates, all kinds
26:29
Speaker 1: of information there about all the kinds of services in
26:31
Speaker 1: my wife and I provide for girls and their families.
26:35
Speaker 1: I appreciate you stopping by here. I really like it
26:38
Speaker 1: when you pass these on to other people so they
26:40
Speaker 1: also get a chance to perhaps learn some things that
26:43
Speaker 1: would enhance their parenting. I'll be back here in a
26:46
Speaker 1: week with a brand new topic, a brand new podcast.
26:49
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for stopping us. I don't se