The language of social-emotional learning is the biggest key factor that differentiates the programs here from others that are available. Each way of teaching skills has its own benefits and strengths.

Ours happens to be taking the knowledge that kids have been given and helping them put it into practice. And a great deal of our success in supporting children has to do with how we talk to them and what we say.

As one example, I am not a fan of using expected or unexpected, and appropriate or inappropriate, when coaching kids. Neither one of these includes an expectation that the child should actually STOP doing what they are doing. They are merely an observation of the action. When it comes to kids, they need clarity.

I prefer talking to kids in terms of acceptable and unacceptable actions and choices. Something acceptable can continue, something unacceptable needs to stop. Here are a few examples:

“Taking something from someone without asking is not acceptable. I want you to return it right now.”

“Whining is not an acceptable way to talk to me and it will not work. I will listen when you use your regular voice.”

“Hiding on me in a store is unacceptable. If it happens again, we will go sit in the car and wait for Mom.”

“Throwing things when you are angry is completely unacceptable. There are ways to express anger safely and we will work on those.”

And remember to catch them doing things right!

“I noticed that you remembered to ask first. That was great!”

“I appreciate you changing your tone of voice. I am ready to listen!”

“You chose to be safe in the store, you can now choose a small treat.”

“It was hard to manage your frustration with your brother, but you took a break. That’s how to do it!”

We are all involved in the process of raising good humans. Teaching them right from wrong, especially when culture works against us to make our job harder, only serves our children to be all the terrific things they can be.

Nearly every time I do a school observation for a child that is struggling with behavior and various forms of aggression toward peers, I see something that the teacher does not. Sneaky saboteurs.

Who are they? They are kids that have quickly learned that the child I am observing is easy to set off, has volatile emotions, and can earn the saboteur “level up” points over the child that has emotional regulation difficulties. Saboteurs are usually very socially aware, well-liked by teachers and other peers, and make sure they position themselves in a way that suggests they would never do such a thing.

Sneaky saboteurs enjoy pushing the buttons of the kid in question and make sure to do so when the teacher isn’t watching, and then, when the child retaliates in self-defense, the more socially savvy child pretends to be the victim, and my guy (or gal) is scolded or consequenced with their legitimate claim of sabotage getting lost in the response to the behavior. Sometimes teachers can sense something is going on, but can’t put their finger on it, as saboteurs can be masters of their game.

Certainly, we can’t allow kids to hurt one another at school. Self-defense looks different than it used to. If your child is struggling with how to defend themselves from sneaky saboteurs, here are a few tips to try.

Have an outside observer come in. This way, the observer can be in tune with and watching just your child and how the other children are interacting with him or her. Sneaky saboteurs know how to work around their teacher, but will usually forget the observer is in the room or on the playground. It is important to note that the teacher is not to blame in any way for these interactions, and sneaky kids can set another kid off in a matter of seconds, usually when a teacher is paying attention to another student (as they should be). Teachers usually express appreciation that I have brought it to the surface or validated the suspicions they haven’t been able to prove.

Teach Your Child No-Go-Ask for Help. This strategy teaches your child to use a stick-up-for-yourself statement first, such as, “Stop it, I don’t want you to do that.” or, “No, I don’t like it when __. If that doesn’t work, the next step is to touch your child to “Go” and remove him or herself from the situation or to take a break. And if the saboteur persists, then it is time for your child to seek help in a way that doesn’t sound like tattling to the teacher. This sounds like, “Mrs. Brown, I have a problem and I need some help.” i

Help Your Child with Frustration Management Strategies. It is perfectly OKAY to be angry, it is not okay to hurt someone else, yourself, or damage property. I have co-written a workbook just for kids (3rd-grade reading level). Kindergarteners can access the content with assistance, and older kids will benefit from the strategies even though the illustrations are for younger kids.

Remember that ALL children can be capable of misbehaving sometimes. It is tempting to give our children who struggle a full pass, and it is going to be very difficult at times to decide if a child is the one who struck first, or the action was in response to being triggered by a saboteur. I think the best idea here is for all adults (parents, teachers, administration) to look at all sides of the story and as a team, before making assumptions about particular interactions.

Work backward from outcome to inception. I have sat and drawn a backward flow chart with kids to ascertain the place where the skills go missing so that I can teach them. It sounds something like this:

“Okay, so you hit Johnny. I don’t agree with that and we can’t solve problems with our hands, but we’ll talk about that later. I want to help you and hear your side of it. What happened right before you hit him?

“He called me stupid, grabbed my book, and threw it on the floor when you weren’t looking.”

“I see. That wasn’t nice. What happened before he called you stupid?”

“Nothing, I was just sitting and reading my book.”

“I see. And you asked him to stop trying to grab it?”

“No. I just hit him so he would stop.”

“Ah, I get it. So what steps maybe got left out?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think they were telling him to stop, moving away to a different table, and asking for help when he didn’t stop?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. So next time, so you don’t get in trouble for hitting him, what can you do?”

“I can tell him to stop, and if he doesn’t, I can go play with Billy.”

“Sounds good. I will try to make sure that I keep an eye on things, but if I don’t see it, please come get me so that you don’t hit him again. I am here to help.”

Protecting volatile kids from sneaky saboteurs is not easy, hard to tell what’s really going on (because it’s so sneaky), and requires a significant amount of coaching for the child who struggles, and calling out the sneaky saboteurs when we catch them at it. I did that this week at my observation. I saw it, and I looked right at the kid causing the problem and said, “I saw that. It was extremely unkind and I don’t want to see it again.” He was not used to be caught, and his reaction was one of knowing he did wrong and feeling some remorse about it.

Exposing the sneaky saboteurs is one way we can not only stop bullying between a set of children before it begins but lets our emotionally struggling kids know that while we don’t accept the choice to lash out, we will teach them other ways and that we always have their back.

Three is a difficult number when it comes to kids playing together.

Have you ever noticed on a playdate at your house if there is a sibling involved, sometimes the guest plays with the sib instead, leaving out the child who the playdate was for?

If you look, you’ll see kids trying to play in threesomes, and for most kids, it rarely goes well. Someone almost always becomes the third wheel when the other two sides of the triangle decide what they want to play, or just want to play with each other.

I’ve seen several instances of triangle trouble at my social groups recently. A couple of friendship pairs have been triangulated by new kids joining the group and inserting themselves into playing. There is nothing inherently bad about that, but the third party causes tension in the triangle, and the tension can switch between any of the three kids participating, depending on what the other two want to do.

Sometimes the third child can’t keep up or doesn’t want to do what the other two want to do. Sometimes the third party lacks the confidence to hold up their side of the trio and gets inadvertently shut down or left out. Because when I ask the two kids who are playing if they are purposely excluding the third, that is usually not the case, but it can be.

So, what to do to help kids with this triangle dilemma?

Name it for what it is, a friendship triangle. And triangles are difficult to play in sometimes.

Make sure that purposeful exclusion is not occurring. If it is, find out why and help the child being excluded with the skills needed to successfully join (frequently, it is because the child is being rigid or bossy).

Triangles can create what I call “flip-flop” friends, meaning someone appears to be your friend sometimes, but not always. It is important to teach kids to question whether or not it is a real friendship worth solving by speaking up about it, or if it would be more advantageous to look outside the triangle for someone else to play with.

Try to schedule playdates in even numbers, it will go MUCH easier for everyone.

I think it’s important for kids to understand that their friends may simply want to do something different, or play with someone else that day. Kids with social difficulties tend to glue themselves to one friend, which can quickly wear out the friendship. Giving them ideas for options when this happens (play with someone else, head for the playground equipment, draw for a while, etc.) can help a child take time out of the triangle without losing either of the other two friendships.

There are kids and teens that have a very difficult time reading and responding to social cues and feedback. This is frequently an inability to tune in to non-verbal body language, but can also be a challenge deciphering verbal feedback and tone of voice.

For example, we were having somewhat of a tense interaction between some of our teen boys last week that I and my co-coach were trying to process and work through when another teen came up to us and started randomly talking about something way out-of-the-realm of what was going on around him. And when we reflected with him on it, he really was completely clueless. He has a weak social antenna.

There are kids whose antenna is weakened by the static and interference that is going on in their amazing and fast-moving brains. Because they mostly operate in their internal world, they miss a good deal of what’s going on in their external world. For kids or teens with ADHD, this is the symptom we call inattentiveness. They are attentive, but not to their environment.

You will discover that you need to ask them to hit the pause button and take a look around (literally) and tell you what is going on. Then, ask them if there is anything important in the external world that they should be noticing. Some kids and teens use medical interventions to help boost their antenna’s reception. Other’s may need to rely on us assisting them with prompts to tune in more carefully. This acronym that I created may be helpful to teach your child or teen. Be AWARE:

A: Always
W: Watch
A: Adjust and
R: Respond to your
E: Environment

Do you ever wonder why you find yourself thinking that your child seems young for their age? It’s because it’s true.

Kids who come for social coaching (some with profiles of ADHD or Social Communication challenges) do act in ways that make them appear younger than their same-age peers. The other piece of the equation is that, more often than not, they are more advanced than their peers intellectually and cognitively and are usually very bright kids.

So what’s up here? There is a gap between social-emotional development and cognitive development. Think of it as about one-third. So if you remove one-third of your child’s chronological age, you will find their social-emotional developmental age. Examples could be:

Your 4-year-old still engages in parallel play instead of cooperative play with other kids his age
Your 11-year-old tween still enjoys the same toys and TV shows as children that are 8 or 9.
Your teen doesn’t seem ready for life at college even though academics wouldn’t be a problem.

A challenge for these kids is that adult expectations are at their chronological age, not their developmental age (because they are so smart or gifted in other areas). When we hold kids to expectations they are not developed enough to meet is where their self-esteem begins to take a hit, and you will see kids become defeated, give up, and act out. That’s not to say that there are some days your child can meet expectations, but when they are not, it’s good to question which age you are currently dealing with, chronological or developmental and raise or lower expectations as needed.

How do you close the gap? By helping kids build skills through patient coaching or in some cases, medicine has helped close the gap.

Honestly, as the mom of a 33-year-old ADHD’er who still needs about the same support as a young adult of 22 graduating from college, I believe these guys could very well always be a little young for their age. I joke, but with some seriousness, that by the time he’s 45, we’ll be good to go as he’ll be developmentally 30.

Keep this 1/3 rule in mind when your child seems to prefer playing with younger kids or engages in younger activities. Enjoy their creativity and youthful side. After all, who doesn’t wish their kids could stay younger just a little longer – it keeps us young, too!

One of the social skills that I teach kids is the difference between an accident, something done on purpose, or an impulse. All of these require some sort of repair but in different ways.

I have met many children and teens over the years that are constantly apologizing. To the point of too much apologizing for every small thing they do or think they might have done. To me, it’s a sign of a child who is a perfectionist and wants to please, one who may have low self-esteem, or an ADHD child who frequently messes up. There are other times when a child uses apologizing as an avoidance tactic, thinking if they just give a quick “I’m sorry” that the issue will go away.

So, what are the differences between an accident, something o purpose, or an impulse, and what should we teach kids to do based on which one the action is?

An accident is just that. Something that happened with absolutely no intent. Let’s use someone’s block tower on the floor as a simple example. A child walks by and maybe they are paying attention to something someone is saying and accidentally bumps the tower and it crashes to the floor. In this instance, particularly for children who apologize for their very existence it seems, I suggest that they repair it, not with an apology, but by saying something to the effect of, “Oh no! That was an accident. I didn’t see the tower there. Let me help you rebuild it.”

An on-purpose choice would be a child deciding with intent, to kick the tower over. Without getting into the much longer and deeper topic of bullying, saying that the children are typically friendly and the child who kicks it feels some remorse, this is where an apology is necessary. A correct apology sounds something like this, “I’m sorry for knocking over your tower. It wasn’t nice of me to kick it, and I won’t do it again.” An apology is never to come with an excuse or trying to pass along the blame, such as, “Well, YOU shouldn’t have built it there.”

An impulse is the tricky one. It is neither a complete accident nor done completely on purpose. There is some intent, but no thought of the outcome beyond the action. I see the tower. It would be fun to kick the tower over. The desire overrides the knowledge that it shouldn’t be done, and the tower gets kicked. This leaves an impulsive kid in a position of having done something not nice, without meaning to make their friend upset. Here is where ADHD kids need support. They need to know that while impulsivity is part of their brain make-up, and it’s hard for them to stop themselves at times, that there is sometimes going to be a negative outcome.

It is crucial they understand that taking responsibility for the impulsive act is going to go much better for them than denial, lying, or covering their butts in the various ways they try to do. As adults, we can coach them (and some kids will require frequent coaching) by saying something like, “I can see (or I understand) that you kicked the tower before you had a chance to think about it. It’s hard for you to predict what will happen sometimes, and you didn’t mean to upset anyone. But your friend is upset that the tower was kicked over, so what you can you do to make it okay again?” In this case, it’s offering to repair the tower, in order to repair the friendship.

Following up my post about the pleasures of being privy to a lot of Nerd Small Talk and getting like-minded kids together enjoying each other’s company, there are certainly times when Non-Nerd Small Talk is going to be required.

You can help your child or teen practice general small talk at dinner or in the car. I talk to kids about how to expand an answer. For example, “did you go anywhere fun last weekend?”

Instead of a one-word yes or no, kids can say something like, “Yes, we went to the beach. Did you go anywhere?” or “No, we just stayed home for the weekend, what did you do?” Following a statement with a question is how to keep a conversation going.

Your child or teen should have some basic information and knowledge about general topics, such as what is going on in sports, the popular online celebrities (think YouTube and Tik Tok), what everyone is watching on streaming services, etc.

Many kids who love Nerd Small Talk have very passionate interests and prefer to talk only about those topics. You can help your child gauge how much another child is willing to discuss those topics by teaching your child to ask a simple question. For example, “Do you like Minecraft a little or a lot?” If the other child says “a lot” you are good to go. If they say a little, teach your child to stay on the topic for just a short time and then change the topic by asking about what the other child likes to do. If the other child says they don’t play Minecraft at all (or any other passionate interest), then direct your child to leave the topic and ask questions until there is common ground.

Teach your child how to recognize the signs that someone has lost interest in a topic or conversation (the picture below is a good example of uninterested body language with a happy talker not reading the cues).

With anything, practice makes better. Picking up a box of chat cards or downloading many of the conversation starters you can find online is another way to support the skills that kids need to navigate conversations in any environment.