Helping Children separate the People from the Problem and the Facts from Opinions

          "People fail to get along because they fear each other;

          they fear each other because they don't know each other;

          they don't know each other because they have not 

     communicated with each other."

          Martin Luther King, Jr.  

     Last week, we began learning how important it is to speak assertively; to share our ideas and feelings.  We are practicing how to Speak Up and Speak Kindly by utilizing I-messages rather than judging or attacking someone else.  Taking responsibility for our own feelings will help us improve our communication skills when we feel upset or angry.   Our reactionary Lizard Brain wants to spit out personal attacks.  But our wise Wizard Brain helps us critique the problematic behavior instead. 

     To reinforce this effective use of communication at home, you may want to:

*Ask your child what kind of voice & body language they use when they speak up.

*Ask your child what kind of words they use to speak up. 

*Help your child re-frame aggressive You-messages into assertive I-messages.  For instance, when your daughter yells at her sibling “Well, you’re stupid, too!" you might coach her, instead, to say “ I don’t like it when you call me names.  That hurts my feelings.”

*Tell your child when you notice him/her using a strong, respectful voice and kind words to speak up.  

     We are also learning how important it is to separate Opinions from Facts.  Children tend to think if they believe something, it must be true.  Just like adults, if they act on opinions and assumptions, without researching the evidence or without asking questions and listening to folks on the other side, they often cause more problems for themselves and others.  

     Learning how to separate Opinions from Facts seems particularly challenging because disagreeing over facts seems to be a national past time right now.  Sara Gorman and Jack Gorman, authors of Denying to the Grave:  Why We Ignore the Facts that will Save Us, argue that it is our psychology that drives us to reject scientific facts and statistics for our own opinions and interpretation.  Humans are distinctly uncomfortable with events or phenomena without clear causes, and when we don’t know something, we tend to fill in the gaps ourselves.  We also respond more to stories than to statistics.  So spin a good story for your children to teach the values you believe in, but also keep asking them to think about whether something is a fact or an opinion before they repeat it or react to it.   

Ann Sherman, Social Emotional Learning Instructor, NES 

and Parenting Matters Coordinator, TEENS, Inc.