“Stop staring at us, Chaim! You are always just staring at us. Why don’t you go find some friends? Go!” the boys in the schoolyard yelled at Chaim.
Chaim didn’t know where else to go. He wasn’t bothering anybody and he didn’t necessarily want to join in the boys’ football game. He was just watching.
***
Leah saw the other girls braiding friendship bracelets and knew a really great stitch that she thought maybe she could show them, but they were either ignoring her or looking right through her.
“Umm, Bracha,” Leah tried to say, but all that really came out was “Hmmm.”
The girls glanced at her quizzically and just kept braiding.
***
I’ve written before about the power of introverts, those who are generally more subdued and prefer to be alone, enjoying the lack of stimulation and noise. While introversion and shyness often overlap, people who are shy experience anxiety when faced with social situations. In contrast, “Introverted people aren’t bothered by social situations,” says Louis Schmidt, director of the Child Emotion Laboratory at McMaster University in Ontario. “They just prefer not to engage.”
Introversion And Social Skills
While I have written about the benefits of introversion, there can be serious social consequences for those who prefer to remain disengaged from social interactions. Often, children like Chaim and Leah will be labeled “nerds,” kids who just watch the action going on around them, but do not participate.
Our society places a premium on extroverts or those who thrive off other people’s conversation or energy. Some children are naturally extroverted, which can make life easy for themselves and for their parents. They can develop social awareness early in life by simply watching the way adults and children around them interact. As they grow, they display good “people skills” – a sense of humor, a positive attitude toward life and empathy for others – qualities guaranteed to win friends.
In some children, however, this internal process does not operate well. Research indicates that children with learning disabilities often fail to pick up social skills and experience more difficulty making and keeping friends than young people without these problems. Yet, quite often children who are academically well within the mainstream suffer from these disadvantages as well.
Social Disabilities
Social disabilities occur at many levels, but experts identify three different areas of learning and behavior that are most common for children who struggle to create lasting social connections. This is not to say that all children who are introverted will have problems maintaining friendships. In fact, many children who are introverted grow into adults who have several intense friendships, sometimes stronger and longer lasting friendships than their extroverted peers. That said, children who display introverted characteristics might also be suffering from social disabilities and simply acting like introverts because they do not know how to act any differently. The main areas that children struggle with socially are separated into cognitive deficit, “performance” deficit, and a “cause and effect” deficit.
- Cognitive deficit. This involves a lack of awareness of how to conduct oneself in a social situation. People who fall into this category fail to observe the unwritten rules of society. For instance, not automatically understanding that at a levaya we do not speak loudly or make jokes. With a cognitive social deficit, children might not understand that when two children are playing with a ball, you can’t swoop in and grab it. Intervention on this level consists of “teaching” social skills the same way that you would teach math or history. It sounds funny, but for people who don’t pick these skills up automatically, direct instruction is necessary. Role-playing different social situations can be particularly helpful.
- Performance deficit. Here a person may understand the unwritten rules, but simply can’t obey them. They want to win, so they cheat. They want the ball, so they grab it. These children have the skills, but cannot apply them to their own lives. Intervention here is trickier because this type of deficit often coincides with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). However, there are interventions which include Dr. Ross Greene’s “Plan B” and cognitive behavioral therapy.
- Cause and effect deficit. A third category of people with social disabilities encompasses children who know how to act and can suppress their needs accordingly, but cannot evaluate their own or others’ behavior. Without understanding the effects of their actions, they cannot anticipate the consequences, thus they often feel that they are the victims of mistreatment and take little responsibility for their actions.