The Big Question: Socialization

Countless times I have heard the question, "But what about socialization?" And I want to respond, "And what about Columbine? Were those shooters appropriately 'socialized?'" Schools did not teach them kindness or forgiveness. Actually, really it was the school system and the other children that made them bitter and full of hatred.


Someone else said to me, "But how are you going to keep your kids from being annoying?" I went to school, and I had many classmates who were annoying. School did not make us "cool." Somebody somewhere is going to find us annoying because not every personality jives with every other personality. That is just the way it is, so why worry about this? Who cares about the popularity contest?


Someone else was concerned about our children not having the ability to stand against peer pressure and being able to make the right decisions. However, experts say that it is those children who have strong relationships with their parents that face these problems and say no to drugs and sex. It is self-confidence, instilled by a loving parent, that gives a child the ability to turn away from those things. The antidrug campaigns on TV say, "Talk to your children because parents make a difference."


So school does not magically make a person "socialized." In fact, I really feel like it does the opposite. I cannot remember where I heard the quote, but someone once said that there is a difference between socialization and socializing. Socialization is the process of learning appropriate social behaviors, and socializing is the opportunity to mingle with other people.


Where in life are you going to be stuck in a place where there are 30 other people just like you, same age, same race (usually), etc.? School is a "false" social arena because you are not often faced with diversity, different ages and different cultures.


In life, there are many opportunities to socialize. Church, family get-togethers, the neighborhood children, the local park in the summer, the play area at the mall in the winter, and play dates with friends are some of the ways that we find ways to socialize. The fact is that you really cannot stop children from socializing unless you lock them up. Children are naturally more outgoing than adults. Children do not see race or status. They just enjoy playing even when they do not know their new friend's name.

However, socialization is a careful and determined plan that a parent teaches their children on appropriate, mature behavior. Many of my parenting articles are meant to teach children socialization skills. Children need opportunities to face conflict or to make new friends, but even more, they need a chance to look back at those moments with their parents and see things from a new perspective.

M tells me about playing with her friends, "This little girl said that I was not allowed to play with this other little girl." So we talked about it: how it made her feel, how she should handle it, what she should say. Another time, she came home from a play date with a new attitude problem that we needed to discipline, and yet another time, she faced someone telling her that she was trouble. We had to show her that she was not trouble, and she felt renewed in her self-confidence, ready to face another social outing.

R comes back from the park, saying she did not make any friends, and we talk about how to make friends and what to say and do to be friendly. The next time we go to the park, she exults by telling me, "Mommy, I made three friends."

With both girls, I find that is much easier to correct the negative input from others when I can invest more into them than others do. Other children can be quite nasty in how they treat others, and children need time to recover from bullies and verbal abusers. I teach them something new about how to act and then give them another opportunity to face the social arena again.

Here are some of the important character traits a child needs to learn to be mature adults someday:

(1) how to recognize and deal with their own emotions

(2) respect for others, including others' space and possessions

(3) self-respect as well as self-confidence

(4) kindness towards others

(5) problem-solving and conflict resolution

(6) autonomy

Dealing with Emotions

Learning to recognize emotions comes from receiving empathy. The parent gives a name to the child's emotion: "So you feel disappointed that things did not work out the way you had wanted."

Learning to deal with emotions comes from discipline. For example, the parent gives direction, "I do not like you hitting your sister when you are angry. If you are upset, I expect you to use words to tell her what she did that bothered you. I want you to say, 'I do not like you taking my toys.'"

Teachers do not have time to give students individual instruction on dealing with emotions. With 30 kids to juggle, how could a teacher identify each child's emotions and instruct them what to do with it?

Respect for Others

Rather than expecting my girls to share, I expect them to respect each other's space. Learning to deal with siblings is training ground for the social arena outside our homes. If your children learn to respect that person who they must deal with day in and day out, you can be sure they will know how to respect others as well.

I love it when the girls share, and I praise them for it. However, I feel that if I force sharing upon them I rob them of the opportunity of knowing what it is like to be generous. Also, sometimes a person needs to feel like they have something special of their own. It gives them a sense of security.

Self-Respect/Self-Confidence

We use appropriate praise (describe what we see, describe how it makes us feel, give the behavior a name), for example, "I see that you used a lot of colors and patterns in your picture. It is so cheerful to see so many colors. Now that is what I call creativity."

One day, M said, "I am scared that I am not pretty." This was a new statement, and I figured this came from someone praising her with non-descriptive praise. Non-descriptive praise actually leaves a person feeling insecure. Imagine being told that you are smart, but not knowing what you did to earn the praise. What do I have to do to earn that status? Will I do something to lose it?

So I said to M, "You have sparkly hazel eyes and long, flowing hair. Your smile makes me want to smile too, and your nose is cute when it scrunches up. That is what I call very beautiful." I have never heard her express concern about her looks again.

Another way to give self-confidence is to avoid labels. People are not a label. People are deep, and their whole beings are so much more than a label that we could give them. I encourage my children to see themselves as anything they want to be: a dancer, a musician, a singer, an artist, a storyteller, a superhero.

Kindness

You learn to be kind by experiencing kindness. This requires teaching by example, for an act of kindness can touch a child's heart in ways that nothing else can. Buying a child a balloon or giving them a piece of candy or a kind word teaches them what it feels like to have something special done for them.

Teaching by example must be followed up with discipline. R came to me saying, "M said that nobody loves me." I handled this two ways. First, I said to R, "What do you think? Do you think nobody loves you." She got a big grin and gave me a big hug and said, "You love me." I said, "Who else?" She said, "Daddy and Jesus." I said, "That's right." And she trotted off secure in the knowledge that she is loved.

Then I went to deal with M's teasing, something that she recently picked up from someone else. I said, "I do not like you teasing your sister. That is not a nice way to treat her. I expect you to treat her with kindness." Lately, she has been telling me that she does not like R, so I acknowledged that is how she feels. "You do not like R and you prefer to be with K, but I still expect you to be kind to her." Now the term kindness could be relative, so I defined what I expected. "That means I do not want you to tease her by telling her that nobody likes her, and I don't want you telling her that you do not like her. You can keep that to yourself."

Resolving Conflict

You do not need to go outside the home to find battlegrounds for children to learn how to problem solve and resolve conflict. Siblings have tons of conflicts in the course of one day, and there are also conflicts between parent and child that also need resolved. Children should be allowed to resolve their own problems. Parents should step in when bodily harm needs to be prevented, but otherwise, children should work it out between them. This gives them the strength and the understanding and the imagination to face issues both outside the home and in their adulthood.

Autonomy

Because we are home schooling, I go out of my way to give autonomy. For a while there, I would dress the girls, put them on the potty, wipe their bottoms for them, wash their hands, clean up their plates from the table, clean up all their toys, and put away their dirty clothes for them. I had to remove myself from the bathroom to get them to do the whole potty thing on their own, and I had to institute their own chores and responsibilities.

I would use discipline to push autonomy and praise to reinforce it. And in the end, they are dressing themselves, going potty on their own, washing their own hands, cleaning up their own rooms, and taking their own plates to the table.

The other day, I was eating my breakfast. Everyone else had eaten, except me and M, and M wanted another piece of toast. From the dining room, I gave her instructions on how to put her bread in the toaster and how to butter her toast and sprinkle cinnamon & sugar on it. I was so proud of her when I saw how she had even cleaned up after herself, putting away the butter, the cinnamon/sugar shaker, and her knife.

And now M & R has started to volunteer to help make dinner, and K (just turned 2) has started to potty train herself. And now my hands gain the freedom to find new hobbies and to actually keep the house clean!