Social exclusion is a main theme in a child’s development and there are many reasons why it happens. Empower your child to be a part of their own learning process and make the most out of social conflict.
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Tips for Talking with Your Child When They Feel Excluded
- Spend time empathizing, don’t rush to solutions. Emphasize exploration of situation over quick answers.
- Let them feel angry for a while; don’t hurry them through their emotions.
- Help your child to feel socially empowered, rather than feeling like a victim and making others into “the bad guy”.
- How parents react to their child’s story is the message that your child will bring back to the classroom. If you talk about a child negatively, your child will also see and talk about that child negatively, which undermines the cohesiveness of a community.
- Help them explore their feelings and the situation in a hopeful way when they’re ready.
- Give hope and maintain a sense of community.
- Help your child see that everyone is equally important.
- Help them explore what intentions a child may have had or what feelings they may have been experiencing, in good faith, building compassion.
What You Could Say to Your Child When They Feel Excluded
- “It doesn’t feel good to be left out, does it? Let your friend know how it made you feel when they said ‘You can’t play’.”
- Empower your child with “I” messages. It’s important for a child to learn to say what they want (vs. what they don’t want):
- “I feel sad when you say I can’t play, and I want you to include me.”
- “I have an idea for this game, and I want to tell you about it.”
- Empower your child with “I” messages. It’s important for a child to learn to say what they want (vs. what they don’t want):
- “You are learning how to tell your friends just how you like to play.”
- “Kids like to play lots of different games. Sounds like your friend wanted to play X game…”
- “We all have different plans of how we want to do things. It sounds like your friend had a different plan.”
- “You are learning how to play your friends’ ideas.”
- “Everybody is learning. That friend is probably learning how to be flexible, and how to listen and play with everyone’s ideas.”
- “It is a good thing that they have you to help them learn that.”
- “When your friend is having a hard time, you can find another friend that will make you feel good and is fun to play with.”
- “Did you ask anyone to help you? The teachers are also there to help.”
- Coach your child to ask, “What are you playing?” (vs. “Can I play with you?”)
- Teach your child to ask for information, not permission, so they can decide if they want to join.
- Binary questions with Yes / No answers make it easier for another child to say, “No, you can’t play.” And a child may say “No” for many reasons that have nothing to do with another child wanting to join.
How to Coach your Child to Include
- Empower your child with automatic social scripts that become natural in time:
- “Sure, there’s always room for more friends.”
- “Yes, please join us.”
- “No problem – I can move over to make some room.”
- Language you can practice with your child to encourage everyone to join:
- Empower your child with “I” messages:
- “I hear you say you feel sad when I said, ‘You can’t play.’ I won’t say that anymore.”
- If playing a game:
- “Let’s explain the rules of the game to make sure that everyone is comfortable.”
- If playing make-believe:
- “Let’s find a role for Friend X.”
- “What are some of the jobs we’re going to have to do? Let’s see if Friend X can help us with one of those jobs.”
- Empower your child with “I” messages:
- Pause and reflect after a learning situation when your child is ready:
- “How do you think your friend felt in that moment?”
- “It doesn’t feel good to be left out. It hurts people’s feelings. Do you remember a time when you felt left out?”
- Inclusion as a rule is prevalent among many leading preschools. For example, children are not encouraged to say “You can’t play”. Instead, if a child wants to play privately with another friend, it’s called a “play date”.
Tips for Role-Playing
- Act out scenarios with hand puppets, dolls or stuffed animals. For example, take two dolls and have one exclude the other. Model what the dolls would say and do.