CHAPTER 1

It's happening again. Your child runs into the house and cries,

“Mommy, nobody wants to play with me.”

“All the kids are picking on me.”

“Nobody likes me.”

Remarks like these break a parent's heart. You see how crushed your child feels. You worry and wonder, Why don't the other kids like her? Or maybe you have some inkling that your child is doing something to drive other kids away. You feel frustrated and think, If only she weren't so shy, or so bossy, or so aggressive, or such a sore loser … Mostly, you feel helpless. As much as you'd like to, you know you can't make friends for your child, and you can't protect her from teasing or unkind remarks. But you wish there were something you could do to make it easier for your child to get along with others.

The Consequences of Friendship Problems

Almost every child has trouble with social relationships in some way, at some time. Having an argument with a friend, dealing with teasing, being excluded from a group, and trying to find a buddy in a new classroom are painful but typical childhood experiences. While some kids sail through social situations, weathering these normal friendship glitches fairly easily, others constantly struggle and flounder.

When children have trouble relating to their peers, they suffer. Other kids reject, ridicule, or ignore them. They feel lonely and isolated. Moreover, children rarely just outgrow social problems. Elementary school children who don't have a best friend tend to become lonely young adults.

Friendship problems are painful and can often lead to far-reaching consequences. If your child has problems with math, he can always use a calculator when he is older. If he is a poor speller, he can rely on a dictionary or the spelling checker on a computer. However, as Dr. Melvin Levine of the University of North Carolina Medical School points out, if your child has social deficits, the effects continue to be crippling long after graduation and in just about every area of life. Problems making friends can persist into adulthood, keeping your child trapped in the role of “outsider.” Social difficulties can also limit your child's future professional opportunities by compromising his or her ability to work effectively with bosses, clients, and coworkers. Social problems can even interfere with your child's ability to find a loving spouse, to build a strong marriage, and to raise children.

The good news is that you can help your child learn to get along with others. Using this book as a guide, you can pinpoint your child's particular social strengths and weaknesses. You can spell out for your child the Unwritten Rules that underlie social situations. With these rules as an essential foundation, you can teach your child the necessary skills for building, sustaining, and repairing friendships.

What Are The Unwritten Rules?

Every social interaction is governed by Unwritten Rules. These rules explain how to interpret social cues and how to act appropriately in social situations. They describe the implicit knowledge, the unspoken subtext, that flows like a current through social relationships. They can be as simple as “Greet people you know” or as complex as “In every good negotiation, both sides win something.”

The Unwritten Rules are guidelines rather than restrictions. They make human interactions proceed smoothly and comfortably. Knowing these rules is essential in navigating the social world capably.

Unwritten Rules are culturally based. For instance, in American culture, direct eye contact is expected when conversing with others. It's a sign of interest, honesty, and sincerity. In other cultures, direct eye contact is disrespectful. Even within the United States, there are variations in the Unwritten Rules. People from New York City tend to speak quickly, whereas a more leisurely pace of speaking is the norm in other parts of the country. In this book, we focus on the rules that seem most critical for children's relationships, but depending on where you live, you may need to modify them somewhat.

Unwritten Rules are everywhere, in every social situation. In a restaurant, you know to listen politely while the server describes the specials for the evening. That's an Unwritten Rule. At work, you know that it's not a good idea to ask the boss for a raise right after she's chewed you out for missing a deadline. That's another Unwritten Rule. If you think about it, you can probably come up with hundreds of Unwritten Rules that guide your behavior every day.

These rules are rarely stated, but most people have an intuitive understanding of them. When you get into an elevator, the first thing you do is turn around and face the doors. You probably never had any specific lessons in elevator etiquette, but somehow you learned this Unwritten Rule. If you were to break this rule and remain standing with your back to the doors, people would think you were strange.

The Unwritten Rules of social situations are so ingrained that the idea of breaking them seems peculiar, even laughable. You know that to get the attention of the person in line ahead of you, you should tap her on the shoulder, not pat her on the head. You know never to ask an acquaintance how much money she earns. You know not to describe your hemorrhoids to a stranger.

Copyright © 2003 by Natalie Madorsky Elman and Eileen Kennedy-Moore

Tags: Parenting and Families

About the Author

Natalie Madorsky Elman, Ph.D., has more than twenty years of experience as director of the Summit Center for Learning in New Jersey. She is a certified learning consultant and speech pathologist who leads social skills training groups for children. She also consults for many private and public schools and has been a consultant to the New Jersey Department of Education.

About the Author

Eileen Kennedy-Moore has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. She works with children, adults, and families in Westfield, New Jersey.