Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today I'm talking about why building social and emotional skills should be, as parents, our single focus if we want to raise successful adults. So, what do I mean? What are these social and emotional skills and why the hell are they important? So, social and emotional skills broadly, as an overview, we'll look at very specific aspects of it, but if we consider that as almost like a heading, the skills that help our children to begin to understand who they are as individuals, how they may respond in terms of their feelings and what they might expect when they're interacting with others. So, that's kind of broadly. What it is. So, it encompasses, it also includes things like self-control, how resistant or resilient they are to stress, how they cooperate, their sociability, their curiosity and all of these are sort of skill sets that support success in life, really, including their health, their well-being, their academic achievement and their job performance. So, to put that into context, when we measure emotions. So, we measure the emotional health of a teen at the age of 16. So, we measure their emotional health and then we track them and we look at what is happening in their life at 30. What we find is that emotional health is a stronger predictor of mental well-being and life chances in terms of successes that we might typically use to measure what success looks like in terms of career and life. And it is a stronger predictor of mental well-being. What we find is that emotional health is a stronger predictor of mental well-being than factors that relate to where they live and the type of school that they've been to, as well as other sort of socioeconomic factors in terms of the opportunities that they've had afforded to them early in their life. So it's a big deal. It's a really big thing. And what I think is so fabulous about it is it's unbelievably teachable. It's something that we can really impact. We can't impact our child's family that they're born into. We can't impact the social sort of demographic that you're born into and the opportunities that you either can or can't afford. But we can impact the social and emotional skills and therefore afford our children the best possible chances of living a resilient and contented life. And also tick all of those boxes in terms of sort of the way that we might traditionally measure success. So that's why I'm, as you could probably tell, incredibly passionate and excited about this because it just, it's something that is so super tangible and something that we can focus in on. And I think it's something that obviously, ideally, in an ideal world, we'd be focusing in on these skills really young. So let's just have a, before I kind of start going into breaking down what some of these skills are and how we might go about teaching them and sort of developing them in our children, I just want to talk a bit more about some of the things that we've been talking about and some of the things that we've been talking about. So I'm going to start off by talking about social and emotional skills. The Royal Foundation have really championed these early foundation years, these nought to five. And I just want to place it into some context here because I know that my audience, those of you who listen to the podcast regularly, have children across the whole age spectrum. And I know that some of you are listening in your 20s for yourself. But I also know that we've got listeners that are pregnant, that haven't yet birthed their child, as well as all ages in between. So let's talk about the different ages and stages that our children might be in so that what I don't want to happen for those of you who are listening with a 13 or a 14 year old and thinking it's too late, I can't do anything about it. So you absolutely 100% can. Remember that our children's brains are plastic, our adult brains are plastic, they're just a little less plastic than when they are when they're younger. So the nought to five years. And the reason why there's been such a huge focus on that is that if we consider that the brain is plastic, imagine it almost like Play-Doh. In those nought to five years, it's really soft. It's really malleable. We can change the shape, we can do all sorts of things because that's at the time where it's growing and it's making these connections at an incredibly fast rate. And the work that we do with our children in terms of supporting and building their social and emotional skills just doesn't take as long. We don't have to kind of go over it and practice and repeat again and again and again in the same way that we do when the brain matures at around age 23, 24, where our brain maintains its plasticity, but it just gets, it's not as soft. You have to kind of work with it. Imagine like a dough or a pastry that you've just taken out of the fridge and it's really hard. But once you get going, it then becomes a little bit, a bit more malleable and we can sort of play around with it. So it's never, ever too late, even for us as adults. But the reason why there's been a focus on the nought to five is because of, because of that. But then remember that our children then go through another big redevelopment around their brain, where we talk about this idea about connections that have not been used are then pruned. They're just sort of cut because it's this idea that if you don't use it, you lose it. And so whoever's listening to this, please be assured that you can impact. Just remember that the more entrenched a child's behavior is, the more you're going to have to, the more they're going to have to practice in order to flip it and then have it the way that we want, you know, so that they can develop those skills. And so that's the reason why. So listening to this, everything I'm going to talk about is really helpful for all ages. It's just how you access it depending on the age and stage of your child. So the reason why we are talking about this is because obviously because of these, they're almost like the foundational building blocks. And when we break them down, you know, what does it actually mean that a child is able to do if we have developed these social and emotional skills? And so I'm going to do this episode in two parts because I want to do a proper, proper thorough job. I want to do a proper job. And I want to do a really thorough job here. And I want you to be able to go away and have some tangible things that you can practice and that you can put in. And the first part really is to help you really understand how, why it's important. And then we're going to, I'm going to talk you through some of the foundational skills that you can begin to work on. And then part two, we're going to develop those skills even further. So when we break it down, what does it mean to have these social and emotional skills? And it's being able to equip our children to be able to, at the basic level is to be able to identify their emotions. At the next level, it's not only being able to identify them, but then manage their, manage those feelings. In terms of making appropriate behavioural responses as a result of those feelings and potentially seek help if they need to do that. So that's at that basic level. And when they're able to do that, what that allows them to do is to build and to nurture their relationships with others because they have this particular skill set. They are able to demonstrate a certain element of self-control. I don't necessarily, the word self-control kind of creates a whole load of connotations of, you know, I'm, I'm not, you know, holding back on who I am. It isn't. What we mean by self-control here is much more being able to understand actually this feeling is really huge. And if I wasn't in company, I might respond in a different way. But because I'm in this particular social situation, I'm always, I'm almost computing that that response is not socially acceptable in this situation. And therefore I've adapted it. That's where the self-control comes in. It's also really crucial in terms of being able to resolve conflict and being able to do that in a kind of a really healthy way, being self-aware, being able to overcome difficulties, make good decisions in moments, build their resilience, their self-esteem and their confidence, which all comes from being able to view themselves in a realistic and I'm trying, I'm trying not to use the word positive, but they're able to really recognise the strengths that they have and be kind and compassionate to who they are and not get caught in a narrative where they perceive themselves to be less than others. And of course, if they have that bundle, if they have that package of skills, what that then allows them to do is recognise when they may well be going down a particular route where their mental health or their emotional wellbeing is compromised. And so what we can then do is we're equipping them as they become adults to be well-rounded, well-equipped, resilient and confident adults. And of course, what that then does is it helps them with friendships and a whole host of other things that are really the foundations, really. We are humans, we're primates, we are, we thrive within that social context. Now, some of us will thrive much more by being around people because that's where we get our energy from. Others don't as much, but in essence, we work and we live and we operate. cooperate in communities and in collectives and so equipping our children with that whether that's our toddlers because they go to play groups or they go to nursery and it's about cooperating with other children whether that's our young children as they're starting school and they're learning to compromise they're learning to take turns all the way up to our teens and our older teens and young adults in terms of that being able to express themselves clearly afford themselves boundaries and being able to navigate some of those sort of difficult challenges they have so hopefully i've persuaded you that it's a really worthwhile investment so let's i want to focus on the in this particular episode around how do we build self-awareness because fundamentally self-awareness are it's the foundations to everything if you're not aware of who you are your emotions and how you respond to them and how you can make more appropriate responses in in different situations then it's really difficult to then extrapolate from that and then start being able to understand other people's emotions and how you might need to adapt and modify your behavior in certain situations because of that sort of social social norms as well as nurturing and developing friendships so the first thing that i would say is really focusing in on the narrative and the conversations with our children about who am i who am i as an individual as a child that is distinct from my family distinct from my friends distinct from what society might tell me to be that might be gender that might be a whole host of other things you know i am a i am unique i am one of a kind now i might share some characteristics with my family i may share some characteristics with my friends but i am fundamentally unique and so let's think about how we might do that now with really young children for those of you who've had children who've probably started school in the last couple of years last few years you will recognize you'll certainly know that one of the early things that children do when they first start school is an exercise very much about who am i you know a diluted version because obviously the children don't necessarily have all of the language and the communication skills initially to be able to really articulate that in a school environment yet it develops as they as they move on but it's that being able to understand who who they are so when we've got children what we really want to do is look at the age and stage that they are in terms of helping them begin that understanding of who they are and so with really young children it's not going to be some sort of existential discussion in philosophical like who are you really so who they are can be really much more around some of the physical things about themselves as well as their interests so they may so for example it may be who am i well i am jack i'm two i love coloring my favorite color is blue i like reading or i like this book i like trains whatever it might be for a major stereotype there didn't i but what i want you to think about is when they're really young our children are not necessarily because they don't have the linguistic they don't have the language and the communication skills to get really into that but i do think we can begin to ask that question out loud to them who are you jack and of course quite often when you're first doing that it's like what do you mean because often particularly when they're really really young they're quite literal it's like i'm jack and is really developing and nurturing that so that might well be around their older brother to younger younger brother or older sister whatever it might be is beginning to kind of have those conversations where we are the ones that are giving them some idea and i think we need to be mindful here to really stick to factual bits about who they are things that we know rather than things that we you know so i don't know you're a little helper for example because what we're trying to do is to what we need to be aware of is that we fundamentally as human beings and as children we become what people tell us we are and i this is you know something that i remember really vividly when i had my second child and or saying to my eldest oh you're such a mummy's little helper you're being so helpful with your sister so of course i was creating this narrative which was obviously said with all of the great intentions because elder sibling new baby comes along trying to nurture to make sure that there isn't any feelings of displacement or jealousy now for him that didn't become a narrative that then got in the way but it could have done because what happens is when we when we repeat a specific characteristic or a description of our children that we've taken from an interpretation what that can do is create this narrative of well my role the person i am is a little helper and therefore at some subconscious level when i'm interacting with friends when i'm trying to negotiate a pay rise when i'm trying to be forceful to say and exert a boundary i may not do that because my internal belief system and my internal narrative is but i'm a little helper and my whole role is to make life easy for everyone else so when we're starting with that who am i particularly with our young children let's try and stick to some of the facts that we know in terms of the real clear-cut things but then be able to add some of the subtleties subtleties in it so if we've got a two-year-old sophie who or an 18-month old sophie who um yesterday really really enjoyed the pasta and that you made you can say oh sophie who loves yesterday's pasta so that we're just adding things that go beyond simply you're sophie you're a girl you're you're one and a half years old your eyes are brown you know those sorts of things i think we can add in so that helps when they're younger and then we can begin to layer that on and if it's something that we've been doing quite regularly when they're younger it then becomes something that they're aware of those neural connections have been wired really well and so we they then naturally they're then able to naturally add other bits about who they are onto it when we're talking about older children so it's quite becomes then much more straightforward as our children come become older when we're looking at children in the sort of the five and above so they're at school or they are capable to some level of drawing something so it doesn't happen they're not drawing a version and you know an anatomically correct version of themselves but they're able to hold some sort of pen pencil crayon and make a mark on a piece of paper from the perspective of this is me their view and their communication is this is a picture of me when we get to that then that's a really helpful way to get them to draw who they are and then layer the connection between what they do with their with their drawing and on paper to the verbal piece so you get that that connection as well as we get older so now i want to talk about the children who have probably skipped that bit maybe they're much older maybe it wasn't something that they covered at school or they did cover it at school but they're like 12 or 13 and you've just not had that conversation ever or in a really really long time and this is where i think it's really helpful for them to then to be able to connect with this distinction about who they are and we might not be able to do that in a straightforward let's sit down and have a conversation about who are you this is where we might be sort of making small sort of conversations around you know i get this is a really tricky time and you're a lot of your friends seem to be really keen to go shopping and do things like that or your friends seem to be really super involved in sport or bmx is what whatever it might be it's that beginning to have that acknowledgement of you can see that your child is beginning that process of trying to work out who they are and that narrative of who they are is being part of a broader sort of soul searching of who am i by comparing myself to others when our children are younger in those youngest stages i'm not going to give you a specific age because it's all different for different children but generally as they begin to get closer to that puberty stage that's when we usually see that distinction but instead i want us to think about they move away from that distinction of i get to reference who i am based on my experiences as opposed to this is who i am by comparison to other people and so that's where we won't do a formal let's sit and who are you instead it becomes much more of a let's you know i will might interject i might have discussions with you i might notice that you're shifting and changing how you go about doing things maybe things that you really loved you're no longer doing and i'm getting a feeling that you're doing that possibly because you're thinking that it's no longer cool or people have made comments about it and you're sort of in that process of feeling slightly lost as to who you are and refinding refinding your way so that can be a real important distinction in terms of that particular area now I know for those of you that are listening that maybe the communication with your child or teen is not at that level where you can begin to have that conversation about who am I this is part of a process so we can certainly look at some of these other ones but it is about understanding that if we're helping our child and our teen develop those social and emotional skills it's imperative that if they're going to understand their emotions and how they respond to a particular situation if they don't have that foundations of knowing who they are then they're not always going to be able to understand why they're responding in certain situations and certain things so just imagine for example that you define yourself maybe in terms of who you are as sporty and then something happens maybe you define yourself as the best person in the fastest in your class maybe even the fastest maybe you're a four-year-old and you think you're the fastest in your family if you don't understand at some level that that's part of who you feel who you believe that you are and then your sibling or another child suddenly then is in a public situation is then faster or is like really excited and possibly even bragging about the fact that they've managed to beat you if you don't understand that that's a core part of how you define yourself you're not necessarily going to be able to understand why in that particular situation you've responded to that feeling of anger frustration disappointment shame whatever that might be in a particular way because that particular event has now completely shaken the foundations of who you are so i know it's not an easy thing to do and i know beginning to have those discussions with younger children it can be a little bit easier in some ways because they've got less of that resistance but the challenge is that they're not going to be able to understand that they don't necessarily have the communication skills and they can't articulate in the same way older children can articulate but they're often reluctant and you get this friction like why are you having a conversation with me about who i am so in which case it's about where can we dip in where can we say i've noticed that you talk a lot about being lazy or you talk a lot about not being good at maths for example and and i i just want to kind of beg to differ on that one you know where where what are you comparing yourself to and what are you comparing yourself to and what are you comparing yourself to how do you go about making that decision that you're not particularly good at that or that you put yourself down here and you completely forget that you're incredible in these particular areas it's a process it isn't going to happen suddenly overnight i guess what i'm saying is that it's worth the investment because the sort of the net effect that the outcome that you're going to get is so important in terms of you know going back to that predictor at 16 it has the biggest predictor in terms of life at 30. so it's worth that frustration it's worth that persistence it's worth that continually revisiting because it will have that big positive effect so the who am i is a piece that you're you're always working on then that what we're now layering on is about understanding how they experience emotions so this is really at the basic level obviously it's about tuning into their body where do i notice emotions in my body are some emotions that i'm not aware of and i'm not aware in one place are other emotions felt elsewhere is that being able to connect make that connection between the feelings that i have and how my body responds physiologically to that and also understanding their thought process so if you've ever sort of seen those sort of psychological sort of circles it's this idea that you have a thought and from that thought that leads to a feeling that feeling then leads to an action a behavior and that behavior then gives us a and then that feeds back into this thought we get this sort of narrative and obviously what we ideally want is this sort of healthy loop of like i'm feeling a little bit nervous in this particular situation um you know i'm i don't think i can perform particularly well in this situation i'm feeling nervous and then but i know what i need to do in terms of rallying myself in this particular situation and then i get this result or i'm i don't think i'm as good as someone else and that leads to anger and frustration i might then lash out which then leads to this so it's being able to understand that and with really young children we can really help them tune into their body within super super practical ways so i love if you're if you want to do this big style is that i will get things like um lining paper which you can get from any diy store and roll it out get your child to lie on the um lining paper and then you draw around them so you've got a life-size version of jack sophie alex whoever and then you get them to draw their eyes and make it who they are doesn't matter what age they are you can do this together and then you've got a life-size version that you can talk about feelings you can talk about where you feel feelings and and i think with and with younger children we might have to sort of highlight the areas that children that people often feel them so in their tummies in their arms maybe in their heart beating faster all of these things so they can really tune in that there's a connection between this feeling and the feeling of being that i get and my emotions as well as this idea about the thoughts that come from my head so you really help them to be able to see that connection because once they understand the connection they can then begin to understand the triggers what are the things that make me respond in this particular way because once i know my triggers and i know what happens in my body and where the thoughts come from i can then look at shifting and changing those and so you know that's a real crucial part and what we'll look at in part two is some really really super practical ways of how we can implement some of these things how can we teach these things how can we manage those in those moment and above all of that when we're working on these foundations of social and emotional skills it's also in our minds getting really reminding ourselves that we also need to change the way that we respond to children's big emotions and how we treat them because they're learning from us in terms of how our social and emotional development is so if we respond in that regulated proportionate acknowledgement way then we are setting the tone we're setting we're modeling for our children how their emotional and social skills are therefore going to develop in that way so i'm hopeful that that is a really that's going to create a little bit of an idea in your mind about where you might start working with your child particularly around those foundations of who they are and then beginning to sort of understand how they experience emotions in part two we will dissect some of those practical things in more detail so that we can then begin to layer on and then how we then add the additional layers on in terms of not only being able to understand our own emotions but then be able to understand our own emotions but then be able to take it that step further and really understand others and then adjust and modify behavior accordingly now as ever if you have enjoyed this podcast i would love it and be eternally grateful if you could follow rate and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love so until next time you
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