CALLING ALL PARENTAL UNITS!

This is bullshit.  No kid should be treated like this. Below is a bully situation and how you can teach your kid to SMARTLY, and CONFIDENTLY deal with it. You want a confident, charismatic kid? Here’s the smart, confident way to teach your child to approach the kid that’s bothering him.

The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Harvey: Hey you! What are you doing? That’s my seat. Get out of it now!

John is smart. He knows not to fall into Harvey’s dominating frame that he’s set up. Instead, he uses his calm confidence to take a moment and evaluate Harvey’s body language. His parents have taught him that bullies aren’t really mean; they are just finding a way to compensate for their insecurities. In other words, this is Harvey’s twisted way of making a friend. Regardless, John was taught to either ignore negativity or make it positive.

John: Hey! What’s your name?

If John’s parents didn’t role play a bully situation with him beforehand, he wouldn’t have been ready to calmly approach the situation, but instead react with fear. John now knows to speak loudly and with strong eye contact when talking to someone like this. Not in a confrontational way, but in a way that shows he is not a pushover. Insecure bullies tend to gravitate towards insecure wallflowers. It’s like a ying and yang thing.

Harvey: Um.. Harvey.
John: Hey, Harvey. Come here and sit with me. I have something to tell you.
Harvey: Why?
John: Just come here.

John has no idea what he’s going to say to Harvey, but he’ll find out when he sits down. This is where those creativity exercises pay off. (Coming soon.)

John: Have you ever played thumb wars?
Harvey: Yeah, duh!
John: Sure, but you’ve never played DOUBLE thumb wars! Here, I’ll show you what to do. First we make one thumb war with these hands. Then, we cross hands and make the second thumb war. Now, are you ready? Let’s go.
Together: One, two, three, four. I declare a thumb war!

John saw a negative situation arising and he rerouted it before it got out of hand. He wouldn’t have been able to do this without doing a bully role play beforehand with his parents. Remind him to keep his cool and not to become negative, as that can lead into something worse.

Oh? This wasn’t enough bully lessons? Big Bad Bully part 2 coming out this week. Keep your eyes on the look out. You are the best parents in the world because you want to do everything possible to help your children grow. Even if your child is not having any issues, reading and learning and listening and observing are the best tools. Always strive to help make your children grow.

If you want to make sure this doesn’t happen to other kids in your neighborhood, or even around the world, the least you can do is pass this message on. Click the “Like” button, now. The blog post will land on your Facebook feed, and you will have possibly saved a child’s life.

Love ya’.

Anthony

Before I wrote my book, I wrote a series of essays inspired from the countless hours spent working with children. They had to do with how I felt adults were speaking to kids in a way that wasn’t conducive to good conversation. Adults naturally think that kids just don’t know how to “throw down” with the “big dogs”. My argument is that they do, and surprisingly well. Sometimes better than adults. Here is one of the essays that inspired this idea, later resulting in the book being released THIS Friday.

Adults ask close-ended questions to children to save kids from the horror of expressing themselves. I used to get these all the time; it saved me from having to speak to others. My way out of it was that maybe I was “shy”, or when I said I didn’t know, maybe I really didn’t know the answer! If they do start off with an open-ended question, they will begin to lead after the child takes too long to answer (answer for him) or seems uncomfortable with answering.  And children love the infamous scapegoat word known as “Good,” to suffice as an answer. Let me give you an example:
Aunt Lisa: Hey Mikey!  How was school today?
Mikey: Good.
Aunt Lisa: Did you have fun?
Mikey: Yeah.
Aunt Lisa: Did you play with your friends?
Mikey: Yah.
Aunt Lisa: What did you guys do?
Mikey: I don’t know.
Aunt Lisa: Awww… Okay go play with your cousin Johnny, he’s waiting for you upstairs.
Now, from a four year old, this doesn’t seem to be the worst thing in the world. After all, they have only been on this earth for four years. And though this is true, social skills are built at these ripe ages.  So what do you do? Well first, locate the problem. Like I said before, I used to be a kid, so I know how it feels to be asked these questions… BORING! People still sometimes ask me these type of questions and it bores me to sleep.  So what do you do to get your child expressing him/herself? Ask questions that they would want to answer. You don’t even have to go that far, just ask a question that sparks their interest. A fun open-ended question.
Aunt Lisa:  Mikey!  My man!  I’ll bet there was something funny that happened at school today  …Aside from maybe dinosaurs attacking the bathroom.
Mikey: Hahah!  Ummm….
Here is where you wait. Children luckily live in the emotion of the moment, so it may take them a while to have to track back in time even a few hours ago to what happened in their day. Just last week I waited almost 20 seconds for a child to answer my question, but surely.. he did. You may find it hard not to lead them, but trust me, just look at them expectantly and something good will eventually come out.
Mikey: I colored animals that talk!
Let’s try to get him to really express himself about things by pushing further…
Aunt Lisa: Haha!  Oh my gosh I love animals that talk!  What did they say?
Now see, we have just set up a good dynamic in this conversation. This child is ready to start blabbing to you like crazy, your job is to LISTEN. Even if you get bored, just keep 100% commitment to listening to what they have to say, it is the most important thing in their day.  Most importantly, you must be interested in what they say… in every little word. If you don’t seem interested in what they say, they won’t think they are interesting to other people and will become shy. You can’t even fake it… human beings are smart people… we all can usually tell if someone is being fake… even your own kid. Really get excited about everything your child is saying, have a fun conversation with them. Make them feel like what they said is great.
When you are having a conversation with your kid, talk to them like a friend. When it is time to be a parent, be a parent. Continually push for more effort in conversation as your child grows, you can begin to ask them questions like, “How did that feel?” and “What do you think of that?”. Always be receptive. Get their opinion, and please try to avoid “Yes” or “No” questions at all costs, they are detrimental to your child’s personality and growth.

Don’t believe me?

Try having a conversation with your bedroom wall. How charismatic are you?

Charisma can’t happen if you are not taking the other person into consideration. The next time you’re having a conversation with someone, take a moment to think if what you’re saying could just as easily be said to that bedroom wall. If so, you’re not having an interaction—you’re just talking at yourself.

In the last post, John showed us how his confident body language and loud and resonant vocal tone was what put him in a good position to turn a potentially ugly situation into something friendly. Instead of “sticking up for himself” which is something weak people do, he was approaching the situation from a totally different reality. He looked at Harvey as an equal, rather than someone who should be getting picked on.

“Frank the Tank”

Sometimes, though, it’s not as simple as the bus situation. Two years pass and John is now eight. He was playing outside during recess, and a new bully, Frank, began to get jealous about who John was playing with.

Frank: You can’t play with Maria. She’s my friend. Get out of here!

Though going to a teacher is a way to fix the problem, it’s only a temporary solution to a bigger problem. John needs to deal with this part on his own, or he’ll never be able to do it when he gets older.

Trying to argue with someone that enjoys making problems is a waste of time. John would just get sucked into a bad situation and before you know it, he’d be in detention. Instead, John was taught to ignore negative comments or make them positive. Bullies are always looking to get a negative reaction from someone. But when they find that you are impenetrable to negativity, they go try bothering someone else.

John: Hey!

John knows that a loud dominant voice, good eye contact, and a smile set him up as the leader. This shakes Frank out of his negative trance for a second and takes him off guard.

John: Come play with us! We’re playing basketball and need a referee.

Done with confident and positive body language, Frank will either accept the invitation or go find someone else to pick on. If, however, he doesn’t, John can choose to walk away with Maria and play on something else. It’s not a big deal. The main thing is to not get upset. Bullies like to get negative reactions out of people. But if John doesn’t give him a negative reaction, Frank won’t bother him anymore.

What’s your bully story? What happened when you were bullied as a kid? What happened when your own kid got bullied? What have you learned? How has it become different? Shoot me an e-mail and let me know.  I’ll get back to you tomorrow… promise.

Love,

Tony (Anthony’s ‘cool’ alter-ego)

P.S. – If you are a CharismaticClub member, expect to be getting some videos sent to you in the next week.

I knew she wanted my money.

“I like your smile, Mary.”

“I like the way you draw, Jack.”

“I like you.”

I know you have a few tricks up your sleeve.

What are some ways that you teach your child to appreciate and lead others?
Do you have any tips?
Do you think it’s difficult to be a leader?
Have you never been a leader before?
Do you relate being a leader to bullying?
Is it hard to teach your child to be loving towards others?

Approaching a child will be different than approaching adults, as children have less of an attention span. So the way to meet new kids is easy, but the steps are important.

Start off with your child introducing himself. In fact, have him practice this several times a week as he will be doing it almost every day in his adult life. It goes like this:

“Hi, I’m Johnny.”

It’s that simple! Immediately after the introduction is the opening physical gesture. It will be different depending on the person.

• For children, have your child give a high-five right after he introduces himself.
• For an adult, teach them to either handshake, “pound the rock”, or high-five.

Always make sure he is practicing:

• direct, non-fleeting eye contact
• squared off body language with hands at his sides
• a BIG smile

(Especially the first ten seconds in meeting someone these things are crucial.)

Another thing to keep in mind is to make sure that this isn’t rushed. In fact, there should be a slight pause between “Hi,” and, “I’m Johnny.”

Each word that your child says is prompting the other person for a commitment.

1. Conversationally, it is better to ask for a bunch of small “commitments” rather than one, long, drawn out commitment.
2. “Hi,” or, “Hello,” is the first commitment asked of the other person, as it takes the other person away from their current state and to refocus their attention on something new.
3. The next part is telling the person his name, which is less asking commitment and more giving value.
4. As soon as he says his name, have him put up his hand for a high-five towards the other child.  This is the next commitment asked of the other person, and it also sets the leading frame for your child.

Notice how your child is the one receiving high fives, not just giving them to adults.

Now that your child has properly introduced himself, it is necessary to make an escalation in the relationship between him and his new friend. An escalation has anything to do with strengthening the connection with your kid and the other person. For this example, you’re at an indoor birthday party, so it is safe to have him go somewhere with his new friend. A great way to escalate is to invite the other person along with you somewhere.

“Would you like to come play cars with me?”

This is also the next commitment asked of the other person, as well as the leading frame continuing for your child. Your child is learning how to lead an interaction where he wants it to go. This is a trait held by confident people, and when taught at a young age, can be powerful. Make sure to watch how much your child is leading though, as it can turn into being overbearing, bullying, and bossy. This is not the goal, and people can easily mistake an insecure bully for being confident, as the two personality types have similar qualities from a distance, but up close it is obvious they are black and white.

The reason to encourage your child to lead interactions is because most people have no idea what they want, or they are simply scared of stepping on another person’s toes. This is a waste of time and will deter from the enjoyment of an interaction. Nobody wants an indecisive person, they want someone who will lead, but who is still democratic. Think president, not dictator.

I tell him, “Pull over and put the flag down.  Pull over.”  Then I say, “Cut,” because I’m making a movie, and Bob is doing Travis and I’m doing a cameo playing the jealous passenger in the backseat.  Now, I had all the lines, all Bob had to do was sit there and not say anything and just stare at me with the back of his head, never turn.  But before the next take, Bob took me over and he said,

“Listen Marty, when you tell me to put that flag down,”

I said, “Yeah,”

“Make me put it down.  Because I’m not going to do it unless you make me put it down.”

And that was the most important lesson in screen acting that I would ever experience, because there’s no line between reality and pretend; there’s only truth, and no one finds that truth better than Robert De Niro.

- Martin Scorsese

Take ordering food, for example.  Even adults order their lunches by asking the waiter if they “can order” something.  In the 90s, they taught me to replace “can” with “may,” as if that made it better.  I think it just made me sound like a sissy boy.  No way would I say, “May I,”.  The proper way to order food is either to make a command or a personal statement.  Both get the job done and build your child’s confidence while remaining respectful towards the other person.  Compare the two following sentences:

“Can I please have the burger without fries?”

OR

“I’d like the burger without fries, please.”

Which sentence sounds more confident?  It’s obvious, the second one.  The reason being because he is presuming this restaurant is able to remove the fries for him.  This is more respectful than thinking they cannot.  Say for instance that your track & field coach told you to run five laps around the track.  That would be a normal command.  Now, how would you feel if your coach asked, “Can you run five laps around the field?”  How respectful towards you does that sound?  He is unsure if you are capable of this task, presuming you are low value.  At the same time, it also makes him seem timid and unsure of his surroundings.  People feel significant around you when you expect highly of them.  Give them a chance to live up to your expectations.  Let’s take a look at another example:

You: Take me to Borders on 5^th Ave, please.

Cabby: Right away, sir!

This is a command towards another person.  But you see, it is not disrespectful to make a command of someone being paid to do things for you.  They are at your service.  As stated before, it would be disrespectful towards the cabby to assume that he is not able to bring you to Borders, or even know where Borders is.  When saying, “Can you take me to Borders?” you are asking a professional driver if he is capable to drive you somewhere.  How respectful is that?  Notice how I insert the word “please” into each statement or command.  This is an important point that I will discuss with you in the another post.

What are ways you teach your kids to be more assertive in social situations?  Post them in the comments!

Kids and Bullies

He was nervous about it a few weeks ago but I didn’t think too much about it.

“Mom, we are moving seats, and I have to sit by this girl, I’m a little worried. She can be kinda mean.”

I went into a kindness opportunity speech, I was hopeful because Josiah is really good at making almost any friendship/ relationship work. I should have known it could be hard if he was concerned. We didn’t talk about it much after that until yesterday.

I was waiting in the car pool line when the door flung open and both boys climbed in, Jack was chatty but Josiah seemed a little quiet. We got home and he sat down next to me on the couch. I knew something was wrong.

“Mom, I’m kind of having a hard time.” he said.
He went on to explain how the girl was being unkind, making fun of his drawings, telling how everything was wrong with him, part by part, day by day. He looked defeated and was starting to take these lies into his heart.

“I tried to tell her I don’t care….but…” he burst into tears.
“But you do care right?” I said. He nodded his head through his tears.
“Everyone cares Josiah, trust me.” I replied as he released long sobs in my arms.
“Do you think there is something wrong with you?” I asked, he shook his head but cried a little harder.

There are times when you just can’t protect your child and someone else’s pain will hurt them. I wanted to cry myself, but I didn’t and we just sat for a moment together.
I told him I thought maybe he was dealing with a bully and suggested we find out some more information so we could make a plan to help him. So we spent some time researching and found out why this might be happening to him and what we could do.

Bullying is either about power or passing on some form of mistreatment. We wondered together if that might be the cause for this girl being unkind. We talked about how sometimes when you hear negative messages repeatedly you can start to believe them.
It was time for truth to do her magic I told him, because truth is the only thing that can set you free. If he was starting to question himself, maybe his bully can’t remember the truth at all.

We came up with a strategy to deal with all the problems we could come up with.

1. Try to ignore any mean or unkind words, completely. No response at all.
2. We sent an e-mail to the teacher explaining what had been going on.
3. I wrote tiny cards of truths/affirmations about him to keep in his backpack at school so he could read them if things got hard.
4. Made a plan to check-in in 2 days to see if our strategy was working.

“Do you think this will work?” I asked.
“Yeah, I feel better mom.” he said.

I gathered my parenting strength and sent him off to school the next day. I realized this is probably just the beginning of various big kid problems but I think we can find our way.

Have your kids ever dealt with a bully? What did you do?

Anthony from CharismaticKid:

Laugh-O-Meter: 5/10 Giggles

Meaningfulness: 10/10 Aha! Moments

Our goal is getting somebody to open up to us, and make them feel comfortable being themselves in the process.  The best way to accomplish this is by treating the person you’re talking to like a friend that you’ve known your entire life.  I don’t feel uncomfortable being myself around true friends, they are accepting of my every trait:  my weaknesses and my strengths, my fears and insecurities.  They love all of me.  Teach your children to treat others the same way.  But there’s one thing that best friends hardly ever do when speaking to each other, and that’s ask questions.  The next time you are in a great conversation with your best pal, take a moment to observe how many questions are being asked.  Likely one or two to get the conversational gears moving, but after that, they disappear.  What quickly replaces them is the most personable tool available in a great conversationalists arsenal:  personal statements.

Think of a personal statement as the ultimate open-ended question.

It gives you the option to not answer at all, and that is what’s so special about it.  A person feels most compelled to speak when they are actually tricked into talking by use of relatable comments that inspire the mind of the person that is listening. How many times have you watched a kid squirm after asking them questions about themselves?

You: So how’ve you been, Josh? What are you up to lately?

Josh: Nothinnnnggg.

The last thing they want to do is have to think about how they have been, and what they are up to in order to make you happy.  People still ask me these questions, and I still squirm to find something interesting to say.  Think about how kids feel!  But do you really want to know “what they’ve been up to?” or are you just interested in getting the person to open up and connect?  People have a problem coming up with things to talk about when they aren’t feeling inspired.  Our minds go blank when we’re put on the spot.  We feel like we have to say something of great value, and on top of it are scared of being judged wrongly if we don’t impress that person.  But replacing questions with personal statements takes care of that.

Food for thought.  Mmmmmm…

Think of an interaction between two people like painting a picture together.

You both take turns with the paintbrush, turning the blank canvas into something unique and special to that interaction – just as no two paintings are ever the same, so are conversations.  Like a creative work of art, conversations will start off rickety and awkward.  But with each stroke of the brush, you are opening up a unique side of yourself towards that other person, which inspires (excites) and sparks a reciprocal expression of emotion from their side of the interaction.  This is how a connection grows, it starts off as a small spark of commitment from one person, and as the other person is able to relate and expand on each emotion, the connection between each other builds into a strong bond that turns into what we call a friendship.

I want to give that conversation with Josh another try:

You: My favorite color is blue because Thomas the Train is blue and I like that.

This makes it too easy for Josh, and that’s exactly what we want!  There is absolutely no way he will not reciprocate with a comment about his favorite color.  Why?  Because he’s just been inspired by the personal statement you made.

Josh: I like Thomas too!  But Percy is my favorite.

See how easily that works?  Think about how you can apply this small concept to your own personal or business life.  No more boring chitchat; no more, “So how’ve you been?”  All you have to do is make personal statements and allow the other person the option to respond, or not.

When I say “personal statements”, I choose my words carefully.  A mere statement may or may not be personal, but most usually it is boring.  This is the next flawed conversational tactic people use, generally as a way to protect themselves from being judged by others.  Making ourselves vulnerable is a tough thing to do, especially for males.  We mask our feelings and opinions with bland and logistical statements as if we were robots transferring information to each other.

Robot 1: Skiing is fun.

Robot 2: Skiing is great.

Robot 1: I usually go skiing in December.

Robot 2: Me too.  Where do you ski?

Robot 1: I ski at Vale, it’s beautiful over there.

Robot 2: I’ve heard that it is beautiful.

It seems like a harmless conversation, the two robots are talking about skiing, they both say skiing is fun, and they talk about when and where they ski.

So what’s the problem?!

A personal statement necessitates emotions, and robots don’t have emotions, they can only state facts.  If you are communicating with another person, and you aren’t including any emotion in what you are saying, you just might be a robot.  Just kidding, you’re not a robot.  But you might be boring the heck out of people and not even know it.  This “robot talk” transcends down to your children, and this is where they learn to speak in facts.  Too many times children will come up to me and say:

Arthur: Mr. Anthony, I’m going to the park today, then we’re going to buy food at the grocery!

Arthur is speaking in logistics.  It’s not his fault, he is simply mirroring what his mother told him.  There’s no unique perspective, just plain cold hard facts.  I call this “assuming emotional context” which is what adults do as a form of shorthand when speaking to each other.  Adults feel as though they are always in a rush, and have no time to explain how they feel about things, so they assume the other person gets the gist of it.  But these are kids, they haven’t been living long enough to understand this sub-context that their parents use with them, so they speak like robots to each other and the emotional context is lost.  But there’s a way to fix this.  The best way to get your child expressing him/herself is by speaking to them with the use of personal statements as much as possible.  Statements that are personal go light years further in effectiveness than stating generalities.  Think about this the next time you talk to someone.  See ya!

Fun-O-Meter: 7/10 Giggles

Meaningfulness: 8.5 Aha! Moments

I know the secrets to storytelling, and speaking to anyone in general.

But you can’t teach your kids by just telling them what to do, you have to be their perfect example. Practice telling stories to your kids using everything you’ve learned here, and they will pick it up like a toy off the floor.  Let’s go!

Super Nerdy Fact: As 55% of communication is through body language, 38% is our vocal tone, rhythm, speed, and dynamics of our speech.

If you want to bore your friends, make sure to speak to them using the same speed, tone, and rhythm, the entire time that you’re speaking to them.  There is nothing more boring than somebody with a monotone voice, there is no flash to the personality; just a dull and fixed sound. Some people are aware of this, so they try to speak loudly and quickly all of the time.  This is annoying and boring too.

There should never be a time where you are consciously thinking about the mechanics of speech, it will mess you up and keep you in your head.

Instead, keep aware of one thing:  emotion.  But not just one emotion, nor two or three.  I want your kids to express all of the colors of the emotional rainbow when speaking with someone, a full range of emotions.  It is the most effective way for communicating with another person.  Adults expect less from each other, they have learned to “fake” being interested, so their attention span seems to be longer.  But children?  They haven’t been taught “faking it” yet, so their attention spans lasts about three seconds.

Whatever the age, emotion is what keeps others interested and listening.  You want to be conveying sadness, happiness, fear, excitement, adventurousness, fun, and every other emotion in the book while communicating with others.  That is how people listen, they need to be stimulated.

Not only should your words have a dynamic range, but so should your tonality.  It should start fast, then get real slow and low, then LOUD and fast again.  Think of an action movie.  There is romance, adventure, thrill, everything.  These days, movies are instant gratification oriented, people no longer have the interest in sitting through flicks that take a while to build.  Old movies used time as a tool, nowadays movies cut the excess time away for fear of boring the viewer.  I miss the old style like that, but they were never good for conversation.  Good conversationalists are like good movie directors, they are making sure you are always getting hit with something new consistently.

Telling a story should be 10% what happened and 90% how you feel about what happened.

Get it? Speaking in this way helps the other person not only become more comfortable with you, but more comfortable with expressing themselves towards you and others.  Compare the following:

John: Yesterday I went to the mall and visited every store.  There were a lot of people there, mostly rushing around shopping for Christmas presents.  I didn’t know what to get for my grandma so I asked the sales associate to help me.  He directed me to the makeup and beauty section, but I don’t think she would like any of that.  I kept looking and finally found a nice necklace for her that I think she’d like.

Mary: Oh, cool.

Was this story good or bad?  Take a look at every sentence, the story seems to be detailed in what was going on, and that’s what makes a good story, right?  Let me take a minute to remind you why one tells a story, to strengthen the connection between you and others.  A story isn’t for relaying information to another human, only robots think like that.  Take a look at John’s story again, what is missing?  You guessed it, the expression of the thing that binds humans together, emotion!  When telling a story, it is important to strip the facts down to the bare bones, and fill up the rest with your unique perspective on what happened.  Let’s try this again.

John: When I went to the mall yesterday I began to feel claustrophobic, as I usually do when tons of people are moving towards me like a herd of angry animals.  I also felt a little hurried, like if I didn’t find the perfect gift for my Grandma in time that someone else was going to find it first, and they’d be all out of stock!  But I felt much better on my way home knowing there was a beautiful silver necklace in a Tiffany’s bag in the backseat; I can’t wait to see Grammie’s face when she opens it.

Immediately I feel closer to this person, a bit more like I know him now.  He gets uncomfortable around huge crowds in a rush, as I sometimes do.  There was a bit of despair in the next sentence, with the fear that he wouldn’t be able to find an adequate present for his dear ol’ Grammie.  Finally, there is a sense of fulfillment as he is driving home after successfully finding the perfect gift.

Stories like this help connect with the listener, making them feel what you were feeling at the time.  Mary did not go mall shopping for Christmas presents this year, in fact she shopped online.  But the familiar emotional context is what will make her relate to John and his story, not the facts about what happened.  This shows that two people can seem to have absolutely nothing in common, but still get along well.  It’s the emotion that brings them together, and everyone shares the same emotions.  I could be a racecar driver and you could be an artist, but if we know how to relate on an emotional level, we could find that we both love the rush of being in the zone while at work, feeling like there is nothing else in the world than my car and the track, or in your case the canvas and the brush.

Fun-O-Meter:  5/10 Giggles

Meaningfulness:  9/10 Aha! Moments

Questions are a necessary part of our social culture, asking a question really is a slick attempt at getting a feel for the person we are talking to so we may eventually make a connection with that person.  It has been made obvious in first post that close-ended questions limit your ability to accomplish this task, and asking open-ended questions can open the conversational floodgates of the other person.  Let’s think of an open-ended question as, “a question that is not made to elicit a desired answer, but rather encourage a unique one.”  The problem with closed-ended questions is they give life to a person’s weak side, encouraging them to remain monosyllabic and short when speaking.  There is no opportunity for persons to express themselves when answering a close-ended question, because the person asking it is not looking for your unique perspective, they only want to hear their desired answer and be done with it.

Randy: “Did you have fun at the park today?”

Anna: “Yes.”

Randy was hoping the best for Anna, it’s obvious he’s not looking for a “No.”  But does that make the question any better?  Most people will answer, “Yes,” to a close-ended question to appease the person that is asking it.  She will answer the way Randy wants her to answer because she has learned that saying, “No,” can make for unpleasant conversation and sometimes even be considered disrespectful.  It’s a nice way to quickly feign a connection with another person.  But I would rather never make a connection with a person than make a bunch of fake ones.  People won’t take me as an authentic person, people won’t respect me or regard me as a person who values genuine connections and has a high regard for my interests.  In fact, I find people who don’t have firm values to be boring.  The wishy-washy character that lives to please everyone but never is truly happy makes me sad.  Sure, people will “like” that person, but will they respect that person?  Will they be inspired by that person’s honesty and intention?  There’s a quote I read recently that I can’t track down at the moment, but it went something like this:

“If nobody in the world disagrees with you, it is because you have nothing to stand up for.”

Now think about that.  There will always be people who don’t like who you are, the things you have to say, or your opinions about things.  In fact, the more passionate you are about things that you love in life, the more chances for somebody to criticize you about them.  But I would rather be honest with how I feel than to lead a life of dishonesty for the small payment of avoiding potential for others to make themselves upset at me.  It just isn’t worth it to me.  What I’m getting at is that we can’t interact with others unless we are being genuine in our words and actions.  We can’t continue talking about conversation unless we understand the meaning of expression.  Productive interactions spawn from genuine expression of emotions.  If your personal method of expression is bogus, no sense in learning how to use the tools needed to efficiently conduct various types of conversation.  Tools are only functional if the content is valuable.  It’s like trying to hammer a crooked nail into the wall with a broken hand, it just not happenin’!

Honesty is my first rule in having a good conversation, meaning expressing how we feel through use of emotions.  People want you to be honest about how you feel about things, would you rather have a friend that agrees with everything you say while the entire time disagreeing with you on the inside, or a friend that appreciates your honesty and returns it with reciprocal honesty?  When a person simply agrees with what others say to appease sensitive egos, they are losing respect from those people.  Furthermore, they are lying to them by assuming that they enjoy being treated like a baby.  Not even children like being treated like babies!  Dishonesty is essentially weakening a connection between two people.  If both parties are being insincere, you are effectively putting on a show for each other.  Even MTV has learned that real drama is more entertaining than something fictional.

Real honesty when speaking with a person can be the most interesting thing in the world, far more interesting than a fabricated characterization of a personality.

But to every person that reads this, there will be the 1% that misinterprets the message.  Those are the people that will say, “So does this mean I can tell my boss that his butt stinks, and I can tell the person in front of me in line at the bank to ‘shut the heck up’ if they’re on their cell phone?”  Of course not.  Learning to be honest and refraining from fake chitchat is not an excuse to be negative towards others.  On the contrary, learning to be genuine in conversation is incredibly rewarding to everyone involved and is an excuse to strengthen a bond that may have never been created otherwise.  Being honest also has to do with knowing how to properly word the things that you want to say, but also knowing when to keep your mouth shut.  There is an art to this skill that comes from experience interacting with others and this is why children have a hard time knowing when to say the right thing.  Understand that they are allowed to mess up during conversation, this is their time that they are learning the difference between right and wrong, and the subtleties and rhythm of how a conversation works.  It is your job to enable and allow them to make these discrepancies between conducive and non-conducive conversation.  Encourage them to speak their mind!

Encourage your children to be radically honest about how they feel.  It is loads and loads and loads better to take risks, be open and honest about everything, and learn to tweak what is effective and fix what is inappropriate, rather than to keep your kid quiet for fear of them saying the wrong thing.  The successful businessmen and women are the ones that have learned the former, and avoided the latter.

The first way to teach sincerity to your children is to be absolutely sincere with them yourself.  There’s no sense in teaching your child the values of honesty and moral when you are filling them with white lies yourself.  I think adults feel the need to shelter children from the real world, acting as if it is a happy “candy land” kind of place where nothing bad can happen except booboos and rainstorms.  But that is not necessary, and can actually slow down the rate of their maturity as they grow.  The world is very much not a horrible place, but that doesn’t mean that bad things can’t happen.  What you want to do is be realistic with them about things.  When they ask questions, don’t feel hesitant to tell them the truth.  And remember, the truth doesn’t have to be gruesome and horrid in order to be “real”, you’re allowed to “water down” truths and situations, as long as they understand what is really going on.  You’d be surprised at how maturely they will take it.  For example, if someone passes away, tell your child about what happened so they may understand one of the inevitable laws of life, death.  It is not weird to bring your child to the funeral so they may experience and understand what it means for someone close to die.  Tell them the truth about what has happened, let them know that it is something that happens to every person, as it will help them better understand the value of life.  You will find that when children are taught life lessons at a younger age, it does not taint them or “scar” them, but rather set them up for a more mature future.  Parenting is simply introducing your child to life, not trying to keep them a child for as long as possible.  I see the meaning of the word “child” not as a fixed individual, but something that is constantly growing and molding as time progresses.  Treat them as such.

Fun-O-Meter: 8/10 Smiles

Meaningfulness: 7/10 Aha! Moments

Daniel Johnston is a manic depressive folk musician from the 80s with a high, nasally voice.  But he is dead on when it comes to social skills.  These lyrics are the basis to good, wholesome people skills.  If you ever need a quick refresher course on teaching yourself and your children, then bookmark this page.  It will be a breath of fresh air coming back to these lyrics every now and again.  In fact, read them to your child every day, whenever you have some time together.  Let the goodness seep into his being, feeling the true benevolence of each line.  Explain what each sentence means.  This will be a good start for understanding what is to come in the following blog posts.

“Fred is one of the richest people I have ever met.  True, he does not have a hoard of money to give away, he cannot pay handsome salaries, he does not entertain lavishly, or bestow costly gifts.  But he overflows with the gold of sincere friendliness and gets in return a self-satisfaction, an influence, and a power with people that all the money in the mint could not buy.  He does not wait to see if people will like him, Fred assumes they do like him.  That is one of his secrets.  He does not wait for them to say hello or smile first, he takes a friendly lead himself and everyone follows.  That is another one of the secrets.  He does not question whether or not he will like a person or wait before deciding to be friendly, he takes it for granted.  He will like everyone, every person.  This is the third secret of friendliness.  He magnifies other’s good points no matter how inconsequential.  He overlooks a few annoying qualities or major bad points, this is the fourth element in friendliness.  Friendliness is very contagious, the trouble is that many of us wait to catch it from someone else instead of giving the other fella a chance.”

-Daniel Johnston from the song “Etiquette” off his Continued Story album

It is best that your child is the leader of the conversations, it shows confidence and will get you compliments from other adults. This means that your child should be the one initiating conversations, and being the first one to make a salutation. A great starting point is having your child order food, talk about what you want him to say beforehand.

It can be as simple as, “Walk up to the man behind the counter and say, “Hi, I’d like to order the cheeseburger, please.”

Did you ever think it could be that easy? And think about how silly it is that you are ordering for you children! They can easily do it on their own with a bit of training and experience. Think about how much of a jumpstart your child will have when he enters school. There will be less fear getting to know the teachers and making friends with the other students. Your child will be the one starting conversation with the teachers, and starting group conversation with the kids.

Let’s get back to ordering. After he orders, the worker will likely ask a question back to your child, but look at you for confirmation. Don’t allow him to let you answer, turn your focus towards your child, they are the leader of this order.

“Would you like a soda with that?”

You’d be surprised at how easily your child will respond. If however, he becomes stifled at this point, just help him out with his decision, but don’t interject with an answer to the worker.

“Do you want a drink? What kind? Okay tell him!”

There, you just took care of it without interjecting. Feel free to take it all the way and give your child the money to pay if you’d like, but this isn’t necessary, as you are the caregiver and it’s important for your child to make that distinction.

When you are with your child, let them know that it is okay to “talk to strangers”. However, make sure they know that if you are not around, they are absolutely not allowed to speak with anyone that they don’t know. Make this distinction clear and mention it daily. Here are some situations where it is healthy to give your child the conversational reigns for interacting with others:

• Ordering food anywhere
• Shopping for new clothes
• Talking with your friends or relatives
• Holiday get-togethers
• Waiting in line

You are encouraged to allow your child to speak with all children and adults alike when they are in your presence. I want children to have the same conversational value as everyone else does, that is the best way to improve their character, social skills, and confidence with speaking to others. Encourage your child to join in conversations with you and your friends or family when chatting. You don’t have to include them in every conversation, as some are strictly for adults or are just boring to kids. That being said, it is possible to simplify conversational topics in order to get your child’s input on the matter, as not all topics necessitate discussion in reaching some sort of experienced adult decision. On the contrary, most good conversation is simply relating emotions with one another. It does not get more simple than that, and that is the type of conversation that anyone can join in on.

Once you understand the groundwork for why people talk to each other, it is easier for you to teach your children social skills the way you want them to learn it.

Get your child expressing him/herself as much as possible, the best way to do this is in the form of making statements.  PERSONAL statements.  Statements that are personal go further than stating generalities.  I’ll explain what this means…

Let me ask you, what do you think sounds better?

“That is good.”

OR

“I like that.”

“That is good,” doesn’t really make any sense.  It’s a tactic adults made in order to skip around the embarrassing route of self-expression.  We are afraid that if we state how we feel, it will get shot down, we will be rejected, we will be making someone feel bad.  So we try to agree with a universal truth, a consensus.

“That is good.  I am agreeing with the world, that IS good!”

I’m not in trouble that way, I can’t be offending anyone, because all I did was state a fact, a truth.  How can you argue the truth?  If the guacamole is good, it doesn’t mean I liked it.  It’s a clever way to beat around the bush, and it dilutes connections with others by avoiding making it personal.

The second one, “I like that,” is a statement that comes from YOU.  It comes from an emotion, it is personal.  It relates to you, making it relatable.  It is also vulnerable.  Vulnerable is good.  Vulnerable shows that you are not afraid of being judged, which is also confidence.

One kid I work with is confident because he is okay with his vulnerabilities, and expresses himself fully.  He not only expresses his strong points, but also his weak points.  He says, “That scares me,” not, “That is scary.”

This difference may sound negligible and silly to talk about, but having your child get in touch with their emotions at a young age is important.  This is a tip you can implement here and there when your child is speaking to you or others.

When children speak to me, they tend to speak in logistics.  This is because adults talk to them that way.  They say, “We’re going to the store to buy vegetables, then we’re going home.”  Robot talk.  There’s no unique perspective, just plain cold hard facts.  And as we all know, robots are good for kickin’ ass, but that’s about it.

When the child says something, ask them how they will feel about it… in what way will it affect them.

KID: “I played ball with Aaron today, Mr. Anthony.”

I always return a child’s statement with another statement…

ME: “I love playing ball!”

This is the first form of expression I teach them.  It also shows them I consider him/her as an equal, expressing my emotions towards them, which places their self-esteem at a high level.  I will demonstrate how I feel when I play ball, keeping it visual.

ME: “When I throw it fast, I get EXCITED to see how FAR it can go.  When they throw it back, I get SCARED if the ball will hit me too hard back!”

When you start expressing your own emotions about the experiences your child had, a special thing starts to happen.  Your child will begin to more easily connect experiences with the emotions associated with them.

Usually when I do this, the four or five year old will stare at me wide eyed, visibly turning the gears in their head, downloading information… learning.  Calibrate your expression and teachings to the appropriate age.  This is useful for anyone, even adults.

ME: “What was it like for YOU?”

Depending where your child is at, they may start blabbing like crazy or not, it doesn’t matter.  What matters is that you are teaching your child how to connect experiences with emotions, and that is what’s important.  They will become conversational masters sooner or later.