STEPS TO SOCIALIZATION

13 South Bayles AvePort Washington, NY 11050

517 767-0266

Lisa Freeman and Evelyn KashinskyCo-founders

OUR PLAN

What is socialization?

The difference between teaching social thinking and teaching social skills.

The 3 theories of social thinking.

What do we teach.

“She’s very social.”What are some of the things she does…..- Greet people (without being told)

- Look at the person they’re speaking to (think with the eyes; listening with whole body)

- Initiate and maintain a conversation (referencing the listener)

- Know how to act in different situations (expected/unexpected behavior)

- Understand and use nonverbal language (body language, gestures, facial expression, tone of voice)

- ‘Fit in’ (following the hidden rules)

- Know how close to stand to someone (physical presence)

Social thinking refers to the process of thinking about your own thoughts and the thoughts of others (perspective taking).

Social thinking is figuring out how to make other people think the way you want them to think about you and knowing that you can change the way people think about you.

Socialization can also be thought as Social Thinking

What is the difference between social thinking

and social skills?We view social skills as a scripted set of behaviors. These are behaviors that are learned in a specific setting or context and are:a) often over generalized to all situations or b) only used in the learned context.

Social thinking teaches the how and why behind the skills so that students can understand and appropriately generalize the skills. Students are taught to be more aware of the world around them and how their behavior impacts both others and themselves.

What do we do when we think socially?

1. We think with our eyes – we look at the people around us and notice the following: what is their facial expression, what is

their body language telling us, are they alone or with someone, you consider the setting in order to figure out what they’re thinking.

2. We use of our social memory – do we know the people, what do we remember about them, what behaviors/action/etc do we expect, what usually happens in this situation/context

3. We take other people’s perspective – we think about what they might be thinking, we think about their beliefs, motives and intentions and what they might want to talk about.

For most of us this is intuitive and happens in asplit second – before we are even aware of it!

- when sharing space with others

- to interpret and understand movies, TV shows, literature

- to understand academic subjects such as social studies and language arts

- when working in groups with peers

- to understand people’s motives and intentions

Social thinking strategies are used

The Puzzle of Social Thinking

Central Coherence

Theory

Getting theWhole Picture

Executive Function Theory

Organization,Planning and Impulse Control

What concepts do we teach?

Concept Definition Activities

Thinking with your eyes

- Directing your eye gaze toward the speaker.

- Looking at what the speaker is looking at (sharing attention). - Understanding that what someone is looking at is what they are thinking about.

- When you look at me I know you are listening to me

1. What Am I Looking At? Choose something/someone to look at. Have your child make a smart guess about what you are looking at. Remind them that ‘eyes are like arrows’ that point to what people are looking at.

2. What Am I Thinking About?The next step is to understand that what someone is looking at is most likely what they are thinking about. After your child identifies what you are looking at ask your child what you might be thinking about. For example, if your looking at the refrigerator you are probably thinking “I’m hungry I’m going to get something to eat.”

Concept Definition Activities

Thinking with your eyes continued

3. ‘Read’ the pictures in a book, magazine etc… Try to figure out what the people are looking at, what they are thinking, and what might happen next

4. What’s He/She Thinking About?Now we want to be ‘social detectives’ and observe the people around us. Figure out what they are looking at and make a smart guess about what they might be thinking based on the direction they are looking in. For example, You notice that the woman standing in front of Dunkin’ Donuts is looking a her wrist. What do you think she’s thinking about?

5. Use movies and TV shows to observe and discuss what the characters are looking at and thinking about to predict (smart guess) what may happen.

Concept Definition Activities

Expected/Unexpected Behaviors

Expected behaviors make you feel comfortable – it’s the way you expect to feel in that setting. It’s predictable.

Unexpected behaviors make you feel uncomfortable. You didn’t expect to feel that way in that setting. It wasn’t predictable.

If you want to ‘fit in’ with the group you do what the group expects you to do.

Discuss where you going and what behaviors are expected in that situation. Talk about issues that might come up and strategies for handling them. i.e. a birthday party. You might say, “today we’re going to Sam’s party.

When we go there it’s expected that you join in group activities, sing happy birthday, eat cake.

It’s unexpected for you to not do what the group is doing or to blow out the candles or to try to open the presents.

Don’t assume they already know what they’re expected to do!

Our behaviors impact on the people around us and cause them to react based on how they feel.

Explain that when you do what’s expected people feel comfortable with you and want to be with you. Which makes you feel good about yourself.

When you do something that’s unexpected, people feel uncomfortable and don’t want to be with you. This does not make you feel good about yourself!

OUR ACTIONS CAUSE REACTIONS

You can change how I feel

Expected /Unexpected Consequence Chart

Behavior:What did I do?

How did the other person feel?

The Reaction: What did the other person do?

How did their reaction make me feel? How can I change my behavior?

Behavior Chart

Concept Definition Activities

Taking someone else’s perspective

Thinking about other’s, and how they think about you.

Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

Figuring out what someone else is thinking; what are their needs and wants.

1. I Spy with My Eye – Choose something in the room andhave them try to guess what it is. The idea is that youknow what the object is and the child doesn’t. You have adifferent thoughts and knowledge than they do.

2. What’s Your Favorite? Discuss what each family likes(food, game, movie etc..). Does everyone like the samething? What do younger children like to do? What aboutthe older children? The adults? Grandparents

3. If I was ….Think of different people, characters, animalsand what they gift they might want.

Concept Definition Activities

Taking someone else’s perspectivecontinued

Thinking about other’s, and how they think about you.

Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

Figuring out what someone else is thinking; what are their needs and wants.

4. Watch your child’s favorite TV show or read a bookwith them and discuss what happened and the differentviewpoints of the characters. What happened to thecharacter? How did it make him feel?

5. As situations arise discuss how you feel about thesituation and the way that each person felt and reacted.

Concept Definition ActivitiesNon-verbal Language

Body language, facial expression, gestures, tone of voice.

Understanding non-verbal cues requires thinking with your eyes. If you don’t look you at people you can’t read non-verbal cues.

60-80% of our communication is non-verbal.

1. Practice making varied facial expressions in themirror. Many of the children don’t realize what theylook like and that they don’t always look as friendly asthey think they do.

2. Have your child identify the non-verbal cues offamily members. i.e. Does daddy look happy? How doknow? What is his face doing? What is his body doing?What’s his tone of voice? How do you know your sister is upset? What is herexpression telling you? Her body language? Her tone ofvoice?

3. Who Can I say Hello to?The focus here is on distinguishing a friendly face froman unfriendly face. Discuss the characteristics of afriendly face (smile, lips turn up, cheeks are up, eyesclose a little) vs. an unfriendly face (a frown or flatlips). Look through magazines, books and have yourchild point out which one’s are friendly/unfriendly andwho you would say hello to.

Concept Definition ActivitiesNon-verbal Languagecontinued

4. How Are They Feeling?When you’re reading with your child or watching TVlook at the characters facial expression and bodylanguage. Discuss how they are feeling and how youknow that’s what they are feeling.

5. Listen to a book on tape, TV, movie and notice thetone of voice of the speaker. Are they beingpleasant/happy, sarcastic, angry etc…

Concepts Definition Activities

The Size of the Problem

Little problem/Big Problem/CATASTROPHE

The size of the problem should determine the size of the reaction.

If the reaction is too big the problem becomes larger.

EMOTIONS ARE CONTAGIOUS!!!

1. Draw the 1-10 scale. Write some problems on filecards. Discuss the size of the problem and where toplace it on the scale,how big your reaction to the problem should be, howmany people will be affected, possible solutions andlong it will take to fix the problem.

2. At dinnertime, discuss what happened during theday. Talk about ‘a problem’ that occurred and how youreacted. Let each family member say how they wouldhave reacted. Would you react the same way?

3. Use the books your child is reading or TV showsthey watch to talk about size of the problem. How didthe character react? Was the reaction appropriate tothe size of the problem? Did you agree with thesolution? What other solutions were possible?

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Concept: What is the size of the Problem?

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

10-2 Times

Calm

Neutral

Happy

3 – 4Times

IrritatedFrustrated

5 – 6Times

Annoyed

7 – 8TimesUpset

9-10TimesAngry

Concept: Emotion ThermometerHow what you do makes someone else feel:

1 – 2 : You can do something once or twice and people will still be happy calm or neutral

3 – 4 : When you do something 3 or 4 times people become irritated and frustrated.

5 – 6 : When you do something 5 – 6 times people become annoyed.

7 – 8 : When you do something 7 or 8 times people become upset.

9 – 10: When you do something 9 or 10 times you can expect someone to become angry. At this point Anything can now tip the other person into anger – It’s the straw the broke the camel’s back!

Concept Definition ActivitiesWhy Care? My child doesn’t care if

he doesn’t have friends.

Even if you don’t want to play with others you need to think about other people because you’re in a group with them – you’re sharing space with them. We want them to have good thoughts about us and not think we’re awkward or odd.

The focus here is to realize that we are alwaysthinking about other people AND they are alwaysthinking about us.

1.Come up with a list of places that your child is induring the week. Are they alone or with otherpeople? If they are with other people then they arehaving thoughts about them. i.e. Whose sitting nextto me? Are they too close to me? What are theywearing? Are they looking at me? Etc…

2. Now discuss the idea that even when we arealone we have thoughts about other people. Forexample, if I don’t clean up my room mom will beupset. If I don’t do my homework my teacher willfail me. If I wear the same shirt everyday people willlook at me funny.

Questions?

Contact us at:

Steps to Socialization13 South Bayles Ave.

Port Washington 11050

516 767-0266

info@s2sny.com