Maximize Your Daughter's Social Skills

Communicating with teachers

Maximize Your Daughter's Social SkillsYour daughter's school's climate and the availability of her teachers affect whether she builds strong social connections. If she is feeling disconnected, you may question whether she is in the right place (more on this in the next chapter). But her social skills count too. Developing strong bonds with teachers and classmates is a two way street. No matter where she goes to school, help her with the following:

Respect Authority Figures
When girls come to school with positive attitudes, their teachers find them enthusiastic learners, and their coaches see them as cooperative team players. Girls can disagree with their teachers and administrators, but they have to do so in ways that convey respect and therefore preserve these relationships. Teens who feel undervalued sometimes show up with chips on their shoulders that evoke the very responses from teachers that they fear most. Those who are distracted by chronic family discord often act out their anger and resentment on other adults.

Does your daughter view her teachers as valuable resources or as potential oppressors? Is she predisposed to listen to adults and do what they ask? Can she respond to constructive criticism without feeling personally attacked?

If your daughter is unaware that her attitude is disrespectful, dismissive, or off-putting, she needs corrective feedback. Don't be afraid to share your insights along with what her teachers observe. Try "I heard something that might be helpful to you." Then repeat the comments succinctly, without editorializing or passing judgment. Even if your daughter denies what you say or your input seems to fall on deaf ears, she is hearing it.

Ask Appropriately for Help
The most resilient girls know how to reach out to adults who take an interest in them and encourage their talents. Socially skilled girls are better able to elicit support and cooperation from others. They know whether teachers prefer to be e-mailed or consulted after school. Whether they want to improve their next biology lab or review the steps in a geometry proof, they ask in ways that ensure they get that help. And they keep asking questions until they get answers.

Can your daughter ask for what she needs? Does she behave in ways that make people feel good about helping her? If your daughter is too shy, self-conscious, or anxious to approach adults, she is not alone. Many teen girls need practical strategies. What should she say? What shouldn't she say? Try role-playing to make her more comfortable. Also, share pertinent stories from your own life that illustrate how you prevailed when it was difficult for you to ask for help.

How to make friendsMaintain Healthy Friendships
Socially adept girls are selective about which classmates they want to befriend, which to keep as school acquaintances only, and which to distance themselves from. Some teens deliberately seek friends who are good influences--that is, they may enjoy socializing, but they also care about their school performance. Fiona, a middle schooler, says, "My parents expect me to do well and I do, mostly. To help, I hang out with the smarter kids that feel the same way about school that I do, so I don't have to worry about them thinking that I'm a drag if I have to do my homework."

Parents rarely find fault with this approach. More typically, however, mothers and fathers become anxious when their daughters befriend kids who are not achievers. It is usually unhelpful to point out to your daughter the disadvantages of such friendships; to demonstrate their autonomy, in fact, girls sometimes cling to unhealthy friendships only because their parents condemn them.

It should be reassuring to know your daughter is unlikely to catch the indifference of her less academically inclined friends. The more you have encouraged her to know herself, to stay in touch with her true desires, and to feel good about her accomplishments, the more immune she will be to negative influences. Clara says:

It may sound selfish, but as you grow you focus on yourself more. You're aware of everybody else, but you try to increase your own strengths and what you need to do to improve. What everyone else does starts to be less important. You have to be who you are and be happy with what you do. Freshman year I was so focused on whatever everyone else thought. It's weird to look back. I feel a lot different.

Also, if you see your daughter disentangling herself from old friendships, don't panic. This is most likely a healthy move. In fact, recent research counteracts the old notion that teenagers who switch social groups are in trouble. In one longitudinal study, three quarters of the peers whom high school seniors named as their closest friends were not even mentioned during these students' sophomore year.

Teenagers who made changes in their friendship circles cited adaptive reasons: they changed interests or activities, encountered conflicts, changed classes (and, therefore, classmates), wanted more fluid groups, and tried to avoid contact with drugs and alcohol. In my experience, teen girls most often change social groups when they are uncomfortable with their friends' values or activities.

If your daughter feels disconnected, encourage her to participate in after-school activities. Getting involved in chorus, stage crew, or community service lets her mingle with students whose shared interest can become the basis for friendships. If she is still reluctant, meeting the teachers in charge of the clubs could ease the way. If there is no late bus in the afternoon, offer to pick her up after her activity or arrange for a car pool so that she is not burdened with finding transportation.

Avoid Alienating People
Socially skilled girls can maintain relationships because they can get their needs met while remaining respectful of others. For example, they offer their opinions and even debate without alienating their peers or adults. They steer clear of making arguments personal, putting people down, or being condescending. What guides them is their ability to read others' emotional reactions and monitor their own behavior.

Girls who are eager to fit in at new schools or those who struggle with more chronic insecurity sometimes try too hard and strike the wrong note. They may seek attention and approval through silliness or put-downs or meanness. Does your daughter stick up for herself without becoming nasty or hostile? Can she avoid blurting out insensitive or offensive comments? Does she listen attentively to others without interrupting or becoming argumentative? If she hears her voice getting too strident or sarcastic, does she tone it down? It is important that she gauge the effect she has on others.

Avoiding rivalry among friendsWork Well in Groups
For many girls, the chance to work on assignments or projects in groups is a reprieve from being sentenced to study in solitary confinement. But collaborating with classmates requires more advanced social skills. Girls must be able to contribute to discussions without monopolizing airtime. They have to balance being creative with staying on track. Does your daughter initiate partnerships? Can she work cooperatively? Is she a team player? Or does she take over, do all the work, and then feel resentful? Can she take stock of her partners' strengths and use them toward the common goal?

The most socially skilled girls (and perhaps future managers) use diplomacy and fairness to divide tasks effectively, foster group decision making, reach a consensus, and forge cohesion. If your daughter lacks these skills, provide her examples of good leadership and cooperation from your school or work experience. Share with her what you have learned from biographies of successful leaders--or read one together. Consider signing her up for a summer program that develops group cohesion and leadership skills, such as those offered by volunteer groups or Outward Bound.

Manage Competition
In the best of worlds, girls benefit from healthy competition. They enjoy the camaraderie of working with friends and rally around each other to boost everyone's performance. Jade, a sophomore, describes, "Last year in bio, there was a big competition with our grades. It made us do so well. We'd do everything together, then we'd break up and have this huge competition. If someone did bad, we'd laugh about it. It boosted our motivation. It was a friendly competition."

With the high level of nervous energy circulating today, however, many girls find it hard to manage the competitive feelings that academics and sports engender. Since they believe their future success is hinging on every single grade, win, or award, seeing others' accomplishments can inflame their insecurity and threaten their relationships. For perfectionists, the need to be the very best makes everyone a potential competitor.

Socially skilled girls keep their relationships on track by monitoring the competition between their friends and themselves. They prevent themselves from being cutthroat. When they surpass a friend, they pay close attention to her facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language to sense whether she is feeling threatened or insecure. As always, though, socially skilled girls walk a fine line. "If my friend is in trouble," a high school sophomore told me, "I'll help her out. She can rely on me. But you also don't want to rub it in their face if you do better."

The most resilient girls are also aware of how they react to others' successes. They know that when they get back grades, they look around for clues as to how they performed compared to their friends. According to one middle schooler, "If my best friend is smiling, I think she's happy and she must've done better than me. Maybe she's just smarter." Another told me, "Every time a test is handed back, people ask me what my grade is. I'll admit I do that too. And the annoying thing is that maybe I'll get a B and I'm happy with it, but then someone gets a B plus and complains, you know?"

Ideally, girls learn to accept that they will not always be first or best. They stop looking over their shoulders. Some even begin to take joy in their friends' accomplishments and talents. Sasha, a junior, tells me:

As a freshman, I really wanted to do well. I was seriously hurt when other people didn't do anything and got better grades than me. Some people go out every day after school with their friends and still make honor roll. Now that I've gone through high school for a while, I know myself as a student better and I've gotten used to the way things are. I know my friends' strengths and weaknesses, and I just take it at that. I know Jen always gets an A. It's okay.

Smart conflict resolutionResolve Conflicts Effectively
Addressing issues skillfully--clearly, tactfully, and directly--socially skilled girls are often able to avoid many of the misunderstandings that plague less communicative teens. If your daughter is able to express her feelings appropriately--including negative emotions such as disappointment, anger, and frustration--she is two steps ahead of the game. The ability to avert social crises also protects her from the emotional upheavals that typically accompany them. With fewer distractions and less drain on their mental energy, as described in Chapter 6, girls who are secure in their relationships are better able to focus on and invest in whatever they are doing.

Of course, no relationship--either with peers or adults--is free from conflict. When clashes do occur, the more adeptly your daughter can address and resolve them, the better she can keep her relationships on an even keel. What can you do to help? Perhaps when she was younger you called her friend's mother and tried to work things out. Now that she is a teenager, however, that level of involvement is inappropriate--unless she is involved in bullying or harassment, in which case you will report this to the authorities at her school.

What you can do is listen attentively. Recap her viewpoint and clarify her feelings. If your teen wishes, help her brainstorm solutions. But think twice before offering unsolicited advice. Also, be cautious about pointing out how her friends are probably feeling, because she might interpret that as evidence of your taking their sides. When you encourage your daughter to take age-appropriate responsibility for working out the snags in her friendships, you are conveying your faith in her social skills.

Repeated conflicts with her teachers will eventually erode her alliances with them. Take the position that blaming teachers won't help. Instead, encourage her to work things out. Let her use you as a sounding board for thinking up possible solutions. Perhaps if she changes her approach in some way, her teacher will too.

If not, suggest that she try to resolve the situation directly. Following the correct chain of command, suggest that she first schedule a meeting with her teacher. You can offer to be present. Girls take pride in approaching their teachers and resolving issues; they also know they earn adults' respect when they are proactive. But if that doesn't help, a visit with her guidance counselor or adviser is probably in order. As a parent, it may relieve you to know firsthand that there are other support networks at school available to your daughter; this situation and its solution are not all on your shoulders.

Beyond getting through the school year more happily and successfully, girls who are able to develop and maintain strong connections learn lessons far more valuable than good grades. At some point, your daughter will have to get along with people she finds difficult, whether they are professors, bosses, roommates, or coworkers. Strong social skills will enable her to minimize unpleasantness, work out differences, combat stress, and benefit from relationships that are empowering.


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