Children learn at an early age that in order to get someone to like you or play with you, they should do a few things. A child can show interest in what another child is doing or he could share a positive thought about the activity. Asking questions gets the potential friend talking and the child can demonstrate that he is fun and interesting himself. Most children without a good social approach find other ways to engage. They may get bossy or pushy, demand time from the potential friend and are either uninterested in the new child’s hobby or overly intent and too personal.

Most of us never think about the layers of communication and meaning in conversations or interactions. Children with Asperger’s Syndrome or who struggle socially have a great disadvantage due to the multitasking that is necessary in creating relationships that go deeper and last longer. This article will cover a dozen objectives or goals that your child should master in order to make friends and to be efficient in more complex social situations.

1. Learning to show interest in others . Explain why we all like to have others notice us and want to know more about us. Talk about why it’s fun to have a friend and come up with ideas of things to talk about. Practice good approaches, like, ‘Do you want to play with one of my yo-yos?’ versus a bad opening, like ‘Hey, do you know I have 40 yo-yos and I’m better than you at them?” Often, struggling children will try to be the expert on a subject and will bore others away from them. Demonstrate to your child by making him sit through a one-sided discussion from you on a topic he has no interest in, then ask him how he felt or how interesting you seemed to him.

2. Becoming more interesting to others . Children often perseverate on their one good talent they’ve been told they have when in fact they have many other interesting things they can do. Make a list of these and practice talking about them. Practice talking about yourself in a short, one-minute introduction and have your child try it. Help your child understand what most children like to discuss; things like pets, favorite TV shows or trips, and that subjects like astral-physics and dinosaur anatomy really leave a lot of people out of a conversation.

3. Trying out new hobbies and interests . To become more interesting, some children may have to expand their current activities. One way to have more friends is to be involved in groups that have a cause or interest. Talk about different hobbies such as collecting items or taking some new classes. Your child can ask other children what they are interested in, then explore the subject by attending a similar program or researching the topic at the library. Sports is not always the answer to getting your child involved since some children are delayed or clumsy with their motor skills. Ask adults what they were interested in as children or visit a craft and hobby store in your area to get ideas.

4. Learning to encourage and compliment others. Children need to understand what discouragement or rude comments feel like first, so discuss times when you know your child has been discouraged or someone has been rude to him. Talk about what would have been nice to hear someone say during that time. Make a list of encouraging statements and practice them at home and in public. Watch movies and decide if the people are using encouraging or discouraging statements. Talk about people in your child’s environment and list the nice compliments that could be said to each of them.

5. Understanding fairness and letting others choose sometimes. Some children feel that if someone is their friend, they own them or can dictate everything they do together. Give examples around the house that show fairness. Role-play situations where choices need to be made and practice letting someone else make a choice without being angry or bossy. Talk about how to work out disagreements by discussing who gets to choose first, asking what else they can think to do or putting off personal choices until the next time.

6. Sharing friends. Often a child will get one best friend and then have a very hard time when that best friend plays with others. Talk about family dynamics and remind them that parents don’t have just one favorite child. Help your child recognize that getting to know another person makes two friends to play with. What can you do with three people that you can’t do with two? Explain that begging a friend not to play with others makes you seem needy and not fun to be around. Practice saying statements that are sincere, like ‘I hope you had a good time’ or ‘What did you do together?’

7. Keeping promises. Children share secrets all of the time and promise not to tell. They promise to take turns and to share things. But if your child makes bold statements such as, ‘I’m going to bring you an expensive present’ or invites someone to come to an expensive outing, you can see how they will not be able to keep those promises. Discuss that your child doesn’t have to promise things that are spectacular and that just little promises are the most important idea in keeping a friend.

8. Avoiding badmouthing or gossip. Discuss what these both mean. Badmouthing is criticizing and gossiping is spreading around a bad story about someone. Think of times your child has had both of these done to him or when he has done the same thing and talk about the feelings they cause. Talk about how saying bad things about people won’t change them or their irritating habits. Practice saying something nice about a person when gossip starts to fly. Help your child understand that gossiping is the wrong way to fit into a group and can only come back to hurt him or get him in trouble.

9. Having clear expectations. Discuss how it makes us feel relaxed to know what is expected of us and what is ‘being prepared.’ Talk about how to be prepared for different activities. Would we feel embarrassed if we were the only one to wear a costume to school or if we went to a birthday party and didn’t bring a present? Practice asking the correct questions in order to know enough information. Role-play being prepared for different situations like visiting a relative versus going to a sleepover. Going to the circus versus playing in a soccer game. Most embarrassing situations can be avoided by understanding the expectations.

10. Learning to say ‘no’ without being rude. Children who struggle socially can be brusque or rude when they feel pressured or don’t want to do something. Discuss why it’s important to be able to say ‘no’ but also how to do that politely. List rude comments like, ‘You’re crazy,’ ‘Forget it,’ ‘Go away,’ or ‘No way’ and come up with positive statements like, ‘Sorry, but I can’t,’ ‘I won’t be able to do that but thanks anyway,’ or ‘No thank-you, but maybe we can do something else later.’ Discuss that by being rude, your child may not get invited again.

11. Not saying ‘yes’ when you mean ‘no.’ Children who have limited friends often agree to do things even when they don’t want to just to keep the interactions going. Point out some instances in your family when that has happened and discuss the negative results of saying what you don’t mean. Tie this in to the earlier goal of always trying to be honest and keeping promises. Mention that you could get into trouble or hurt by agreeing to do things you know are wrong. Talk about what some of these things are.

12. Not hurting others feelings and apologizing. These are hard rules for everyone but for socially struggling children, they are even harder. These kids usually make statements without realizing that they are hurtful, and when it comes to apologizing, they get angry because what they said was true. “You have a long nose” or “You’re too fat for my team.” Talk about the different ways someone can react when they are hurt; they can be sad, mad or shocked, and they may cry or pout. Practice seeing what those faces look like. Talk about what you should say if you see that someone has such a look on his face. Practice ‘sorry’ statements. Talk about why saying sorry makes you more grown-up, a better friend and shows you are responsible enough to take the blame for doing something wrong.

Putting It All Together

For children to have success, they must be able to put together all the above objectives, and develop their own style by practicing. The work of connecting nonverbal and verbal communication is central to healthy social skills development. You can talk about them being cool. “Coolness,” in essence, is knowing and using correct connections of word choice, tone and politeness. Developing these good communication skills makes you "cool."

Meeting people, talking to friends and asking for directions seems so easy to all of us who have the ability to do that effectively, and because of that we never stop to wonder how we learned those skills. We never took a preschool class called Nice Manners or Creating a Conversation 101, but growing up we easily made friends, answered questions appropriately and understood that having a conversation is a give and take deal. So when we encounter someone who struggles in these areas, we’re not sure how to start teaching something that seems to just happen for most of us.

Teaching the basics
The place to start is at the most basic level of the communication process: recognizing what it takes to have a good conversation and how other people play into that formula. Although AS or socially challenged children can interpret (but they do this literally) the words a person says, they have great difficulty with the non-verbal communication attached to those words, such as identifying when someone is annoyed with them. Instead of picking up on the body language of the listener, they keep talking and talking until the annoyed child runs away or lashes out, leaving them confused by the exchange.

Teaching the Concept of ‘Other’
What makes it so difficult to connect socially is that AS children have a real difficulty understanding the perspective of another person. AS children are caring but they are unaware that the views and or needs of other people affect them.

Looking in a Mirror, Looking out a Window
Because of this unawareness of other's views and needs, AS children seem, for lack of a better word, self-centered. Their self-focused perspective is similar to looking in a mirror. All they see is themselves and their reflection on the world. You need to shift your child’s thinking so that they "look out the window," and focus on the world around them. Addressing a child's issue of self-focus and their inability to see another person's perspective is a valuable goal.

Noticing Other People
The language of nonverbal communication is based on the language of the eyes and carries a great deal of information about the conversation you’re having. AS children's disruption in visual-spatial processing puts them at a significant disadvantage in interpreting social communications that are based on seeing these cues.

Here is a list of the non-verbal cues AS children need to learn to notice:

• Someone's mood or feelings
• Someone's expressions
• Someone's posture
• Someone's spatial relationship to others
• Someone's tone of voice
• Someone's speed of speech
• Someone's word choices

Just mentioning these items to your child doesn’t mean they’ll be able to start using or looking for these clues from a speaker. All of these cues need to be modeled and practiced in order to become ingrained and automatic on a daily basis. This will seem like a slow process, especially since it may take days or weeks before your child is using these techniques appropriately out in the world. But here are the steps needed in order to teach each point.

• Model the behavior for your child, for example, showing how your posture or expression can signal different feelings and talk about why that’s important to know
• Ask the child to explain what you just did and to model or demonstrate what you did
• Develop a way to add the behavior to the child's memory by taking them out to a store or to family gathering to practice

First Things First: Practice Noticing
Any practice in noticing should include activities and direct instruction to explain the aspects of communication that are missed. Some cues or messages that children will need to learn to notice are:

• Looking at people's eyes
• Noticing where a person is looking
• Noticing a person's expression
• Looking at how someone is standing or sitting

Once your child is able to ‘read’ another person’s nonverbal expressions, tone and meaning, then you can begin to build a foundation of good social skills. In developing a foundation of social skills, assess your child’s social deficits and strengths first. Some of skills that they will need to master are:

• Looking into the eyes of another when communicating
• Using facial expressions that are appropriate to the content of the words spoken
• Noticing facial expression, body posture, and physical proximity of self and others
• Speaking clearly and using varied tone of voice and appropriate volume
• Choosing topics for conversation that are appropriate to the setting and the audience
• Maintaining a topic in conversation and being flexible in changing topics in a conversation
• Taking turns while conversing and waiting to be acknowledged or called on before speaking
• Introducing oneself to others appropriately
• Using appropriate conversational pleasantries
• Asking for help when needed
• Be able to have a sense of what is likely to happen in a social situation to lessen the novelty of interactions
• Keep in mind the presence of others in a conversation, and to understand that a conversation isn't a monologue

Any program that addresses the skills on the list above should be done with appropriate modeling, either from siblings, peers or a professional. As with any plan, you must slowly transition away from old habits into the new behavior in order to lead your child to greater independence and to feel a new level of competency in social relationships.

Activities:

1. Videotape your child making a series of facial expressions: happy, sad, angry, worried, scared, bored, and so on, and have the child watch himself or herself. Do the same with other children and adults and have the child guess what the feeling is.
2. Turn off the sound on the TV during a video or movie and work with the child to decipher what is happening. This will require that the child reads facial, posture, and gesture cues.
3. Read a story and ask, "What do you think would happen next?" Discuss how important it is to have some theory of action; some way to predict what is likely to happen next. What cues give the child the idea of what will happen next.
4. Create a book of situations, with different chapters for the different social demands the child will deal with that month, such as school, church, scouts, or a birthday party. Help the child predict what will happen and develop a plan for what they are likely to need to do in these situations.
5. Teaching your child to listen to another’s ideas can be accomplished by having the child repeat back the opinions of family members on a certain topic. “Dad likes football because…..’ Mom doesn’t like it because….’ You can also teach your child to be a reporter, and pretend they are recording the speaker’s comments to show on the news later but of course they have to record with their ears. Show what happens when you don’t listen to them. Talk about how they feel mad or sad when you didn’t hear what they needed.
6. Notice and work with animals. Working with animals is often less stressful and more fun for the child than practicing social situations with other people. What does that dog mean when he wags his tail? How about when he cowers down and puts his ears back? Contact with animals can be a wonderful way to work on empathy and reading social cues, as animals are predictable and engaging. Of course, don’ use unfamiliar animals to practice this.
7. Take your child with you to places where people are doing a trade. Model for your child how to show interest in another person’s work buy asking questions and using appropriate answers that imply you are listening. Have your child prepared to ask a few, pre-practiced questions themselves and to be able to remember what the person told them. Remind your child this is not the time for them to begin talking about their own interests.
8. Use dolls or puppets to act out how to make a friend and how to engage that new friend in a conversation.
9. Help your child come up with ways to spend time with friends by discussing the answers to the following questions: What are some places you and your friends could go? Do you think it’s true that the more time you spend with friends, the more you get to know them? What are some interesting activities versus boring activities? Safe activities versus dangerous activities? What would you talk about and how would you feel?
10. To teach an understanding of how other people feel, discuss situations with your child about times they were scared, elated or very angry. Find a book or magazine and identify what people in the pictures might be feeling. Go to a mall and people-watch. Identify persons who are happy, hurried and depressed. Talk about why we all won’t feel the same way at the same time and why that’s important to know when you talk to a person.

The basis of good social skills starts with the knowledge that others have a contribution in a conversation, too. This begins with recognizing the non-verbal cues of the speaker and understanding or reading what they mean. It requires knowing when a person is easy to approach and when to know that it’s not a good time to try to start a conversation.
When your child practices and masters these very early skills needed to be a good communicator, their self esteem and confidence will increase and their anxiety in social situations will decrease and they will be ready to learn the more complex social skills, like letting go of an argument or dealing with humor or sarcasm.