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Youths' Social Skills Honed in Therapy "Youths' Social Skills Honed in Therapy." The Boston Sunday Globe (excerpt) Sept. 16, 1990 It is a Monday afternoon and 10-year-old Charlie is shooting hoops in the activity room of the Grace Lutheran Church in Needham. The overweight fifth grader prays for a basket, but he double dribbles and loses the ball instead. "You fat tub of lard. What a loser!" Eric from Millis yells. The "coach" calls time; rather than rehash the play, however, Richard Dana wants to discuss different strategies. "How did you feel when Eric put you down?" asks Dana, a clinical psychologist and director of Dana Group Associates, a private psychological practice in Needham. "It happens every day at school," complains Charlie. "What do you think would be a good way to handle that kind of teasing?" Dana asks Charlie and the six other 10-to-12-year-old boys who meet weekly with Dana to shore up their social skills. Their goal is to score points off the court with their peers by learning, among other things, how to be a good friend so they will have more friends and, in the process, feel better about themselves. The boys decide to role-play Charlie's responses to being teased. Dana plays Charlie, imitating the way Charlie has handled it in the past. Larry, from Roslindale, plays Roger, a bully from school who constantly taunts Charlie. Roger: "Hey, Fatty." Dana, acting Charlie, says with a smile to Roger: "Hey, Roger, how's it going?" Roger seems disarmed by Dana's lack of defensiveness and does not know what to say next. After still more role-plays, the group helps Charlie decide which strategies are most helpful. Eleven year-old Mark of Framingham chimes in: "You can't let them know that you're upset. It just makes them want to tease you more. That's what happened when I used to get teased." Dana now plays his real role, that of the therapist: "So, Charlie, if you don't show you're upset, and participate in a playful way with the teasing, it takes away the sting, and the kids will tease you less." Group therapy is becoming increasingly popular in the mental health field for children such as Charlie who may not have serious clinical problems but who, for a variety of reasons, are having a difficult time socially. According to Dana, whose practice runs 10 (now 30+) social-skill development groups a year for boys and girls ages 7-18, "We see the group experience as giving children a complete toolbox and the awareness of which tools to use for each job they face. Too often," he says, "children use the same strategy in every situation. Through our coaching, they learn to develop the flexibility to give and take. We take for granted certain skills like entering a room, greeting a friend and bringing up a topic of interest. For some children, these simple tasks are excruciatingly difficult. They don't trust their own instincts. They are unaware of how they affect others." Just as some children have trouble learning to read in the standard way taught in school, there are boys and girls who have difficulty picking up social cues in everyday situations. Social-skill development groups can be seen as a laboratory where children can experiment with various behaviors by trying them out and seeing if they work. Children with learning disabilities or attentional difficulties tend to benefit from these groups because they lack self-esteem due to academic failure and often have weak social skills. "These children tend to misinterpret other children's intentions," says psychologist, Richard Dana. "Learning-disabled youngsters listen selectively to a conversation and mistime their comments. It is also common for them to offend others by being too candid or insensitive to the impact of their statements." Today's children often don't have the opportunity to form friendships. They don't play informally on the streets as their parents did, but instead are frequently shuttled from activity to activity in a busy yet isolated fashion. "All kids in today's society, with the danger of the breakdown of a neighborhood supports, extended families, dual working parents and many single families can use some time with the help of a competent adult learning to get along," say James Garland, a professor of social work at the Boston University School of Social Work, who trains graduate students to run these groups. Mental-health experts maintain that these groups, which usually meet weekly for part or all of a year, satisfy a child's need to belong and be part of a group or gang, and reassure youngsters that their problems are not unique, and that they aren't weird for having them. By helping to solve other's problems in a group, professionals say, children are learning to express their feelings, gaining the experience of thinking through the mechanics of problem-solving and acquiring the ability to tackle their own issues. Groups are also appealing to parents because they cost half as much as individual therapy. Still, private mental-health agencies can charge up to $55 a session, not an inexpensive sum. More social-skill building groups are beginning to take place in the schools, where their social worker, psychologist or guidance counselor may conduct them, and teachers are increasingly identifying boys and girls who could benefit from these sessions. Frequently, outside social service agencies will contract with a school and run workshops with children right in the school. Back to Charlie, the overweight boy who was teased during basketball. Psychologist Richard Dana believes that, because of the group, Charlie can now handle and even enjoy humorous ribbing, and knows how to differentiate between playful and malicious teasing. He is able to ignore some comments and take a stand when he thinks he is being mistreated. Recently he told Dana he now feels things don't just happen to him anymore but that he can control a situation. According to Dana, Charlie's self-esteem has soared. |
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