Total Read Time: 4 mins.
Fun-O-Meter: 7/10 Giggles
Meaningfulness: 8.5 Aha! Moments
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Total Read Time: 5 mins.
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:
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.
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!
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.
Total Read Time: 1.3 mins.
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.
I recommend getting your child to interact with as many people as possible each day. The old adage “practice makes perfect” rings true when it comes to social skills. The more people you interact with, the more comfortable they will be interacting. The main focus is not to interject during your child’s interaction with another person, even with another adult, as this will give your child the feeling that you are really running the show, and they are not important enough to speak to the person as equals. This may cause everyone a bit of frustration, since your child is not a professional talker, like yourself. Your child will take long pauses, speak incoherently at times, and may not talk much at all. This is because they are new to the game and need the experience. If you are constantly doing all the work for your kid, he won’t grow. Let him grow. The times where your child has the hardest time communicating are the times where they learn the most. Think of children’s social skills like their muscles, if you do the pull-ups and push-ups for them, they are not growing. Once again, this goes back to the life situation versus your child’s growth. Life situations can generally wait without you speeding the process along, but your child’s progress is necessary now. Take the time to work on it with your kid, despite life’s other issues.
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.