Social skills

[mrissa]

Some of my friends have a kid who's switched from homeschooling to public schooling for various reasons. (Homeschooling has served him well and it looks like the public school in question will also serve him well, so I really don't want to get into a homeschooling vs. public schools vs. private schools debate here.) He's a bright and self-motivated kid. And this will be relevant in a minute: he has Asperger's Syndrome. I've been thinking a lot about the transition he's going through, and it seems like a lot of people are saying this will be good for him to learn social skills.

What I want to know is: what do you think those social skills are? What social skills would you like a kid to know when he/she makes the transition to adulthood? Concretely. Specifically. This kid is very bright, but I think that what our culture does with kids like him is the equivalent of sending a kid off to school and saying, "Okay, now you should be learning math. We're not going to tell you where the math books are. They're somewhere in the building, and they have something to do with one of your classes. Go learn math." "What kind of math?" "Y'know, math. It's important. The same math everyone else your age has learned."

Here's an example of the sort of social skill I mean: I think that it's important for an adult to be able to approach strangers with a specific professional question. To be able to walk up to someone at a conference, for example, and say, "Hi. Are you here for the x conference? Oh, good -- do you know where registration is?" and to generally carry on the rest of that conversation. Some people will find this difficult and others will think it's great fun and a marvelous opportunity to talk to other people in their field. But everyone should know how to do it, what general set of words to use etc.

Or another social skill: an adult should be able to express to another adult that they disagree but are willing to drop the subject at hand.

Some of the examples in my head are handled terribly by our current school system, but the fact that people aren't learning them doesn't make them less valuable. I'm curious, though, about what you all think this "learn social skills" thing actually means, or should mean. What are we taking for granted that "of course everyone knows" that may well be learned behavior on the part of neurotypicals? If you've got Asperger's yourself, what social skills have you learned the hard way, or what did you wish someone had explained to you in your late teens and early twenties?

Comments

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Recognizing the subtle and not-so-subtle non-verbal cues of either interest or boredom is important, I'd say (though schools aren't necessarily good for that).

Developing a sense of humor (punnery doesn't count!) is one that school can be good for.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh yes: signs of interest or boredom are extremely important. Good one.

And tying that in with your second one: the non-verbal cues people use to indicate the difference between "that was not funny, but whatever" and "that was not funny, and I now don't think I like you as much." Important stuff.

A tangential reply

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Hmm. This makes me think of some of the skills/rules mentioned in "New Rules for Business" (or something like that). I recommended it to an advanced client from Japan, because it includes really detailed stuff like "at least make eye contact and nod or wave when someone you recognize is within 10 feet of you" and "say 'hi' if they come within 5 feet" or something similarly detailed. I haven't been able to find a good current generic social skills book for international residents of the US yet, but if there were a good one, I wonder if some of it wouldn't be useful for people with Asperger's. NOT because they're like people from another country, but because such a book would be more likely to quantify things and give details rather than making assumptions. Some college-level interpersonal communication textbooks might work well for someone with high-level reading skills.

I homeschooled through high school and got my social skills (what I have of them) by GMing a weekly RPG, and Girl Scouts. ;p

Re: A tangential reply

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, I think that knowing what "social skills" are useful would be helpful to someone like my friends' son regardless of whether he was homeschooling or going to public or private school -- it's just that the transition between types of schools means that more people were bringing it up. I hope you do find one for international residents, though, because it sounds really useful.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

I don't have Asperger's but I seem to share a lot of traits with high functioning Autistic type people.

I wish that someone would have rehearsed with me the whole social chit-chat thing when I was young instead of leaving me to work out for myself that some questions have not only stock answers but stock follow up questions, like the typical American "how are you" exchange.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I find that the typical American "how are you" exchange varies regionally, but you're right that there are some strong commonalities.

I think social chitchat has gotten cultural short shrift for awhile, and the result has not been that there has been no need for "small talk" but that people have less idea of how to handle it. I think "small talk" has broadened in type greatly over the last 30-40 years, but it's also being treated as instinctive where clearly it isn't for many people.

[brooksmoses]

Although you don't want to get into a homeschooling vs. public schools debate, and I don't either, and this is somewhat in that direction ... I'm reminded of this quote from our local elementary-school principal (or possibly it was the superintendent of schools) when he learned that my mother would be homeschooling me and my brother: "Oh, what a great way for them to learn social skills! We don't have time to teach kids those here."

More thoughts when I've had dinner and am coherent.

(Incidentally, I also did the transitioning from homeschooling to public school thing, in 10th grade. If the kid in question happens to want to talk to someone who went through something similar, at some point, I'd be glad to offer.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Brooks; I'm sure his parents will see this comment.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

By "transition to adult" I'm assuming this is roughly HS. Different ages have different social skills.

"Learning social skills" is often synonymous with "assimilation", and it isn't. Basically, he has to learn how to deal with people who are less than honest. Sometimes they simply have their own agenda and his is secondary; sometimes they're out and out lying. Homeschool, the teacher and fellow students are on his side. In Real Life (tm), that's simply not the case.

Sincerity. If he can learn to fake that, he's got it made.

How to handle drugs, from tobacco and alcohol to harder stuff. This may be as easy as learning how to say "no" and not succumbing to peer pressure, but I wouldn't count on it. He needs to know where to go for information and counseling, and who he can trust not to talk to his parents.

Girls. The beginning of a lifetime of study.

Dunno how Asperger's affects any of this.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Our culture does pretty poorly with how to figure out whether you want to use a given drug or not. It's assumed that everyone will want to use caffeine, for example.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I remember the friend, post-college, who asked me if I thought my mother would marry again while my father was terminally ill, but still very much alive.

I rather wish I'd told her how insensitive and clueless that was, instead of stammering something about how I didn't know if she would or not.

[sensational.livejournal.com]

Personal space rules, or how to get a sense of how comfortable someone is with proximity.

Also, appropriate conversation topics for different settings.

Those two came from working with a high functioning autistic kid a while back.

I wish someone had taught me when I was younger:

How to express a difference of opinion without being insulting.

The power of the "I feel" statement when trying to resolve a problem with someone else.

When someone is angry at you, it's not actually the end of the world. Or: How to cope with someone yelling at you. I wonder if it'd be a meditation class.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am still not good with people yelling at me. It is not acceptable behavior in the subculture I was raised, and I intend to raise kids in a similar one.

But yes, variability of setting is a big one.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

I believe I have met the young man in question, and he already has very good social skills when playing with younger kids and speaking to adults.

Here are the social skills I think everyone needs to know and that I believe Aspies have trouble picking up instinctively:

1. The ability to read physical cues to notice when you are monopolizing the conversation and/or the other person is not interested in what you are saying.

2. The ability to really listen as others talk, and take an interest in what they are saying.

3. The ability to look people in the eye in a way which approximates comfortability when you are meeting/ addressing them.

4. The ability to moderate the tone and volume of your speaking voice.

5. The ability to understand other nonverbal cues such as gesture and facial expression to read people's moods.

I could go on. But here's the thing. I don't believe that Aspie's can easily learn them just from hanging around a bunch of neurotypical kids. That's why so many Aspies need social skills groups where they are literally TAUGHT how to read these things, as if they are taking a biology/anthropology course.

The way being around a bunch of neurotypical kids will help is if the kid is already getting some sort of teaching/training in social skills and then he can have a chance to practice them, and to see other kids' reactions when he forgets to use them.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You have met him. Yes.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

At least in my experience, now very much out of date, there was *zero* attempt to actually *teach* any social skills. By being around a larger group of people, there was some possibility of learning some observationally, if you were so inclined (and even some benefits to doing so). Generally, moving outside your family you will encounter a much wider range of opinions and experiences than you will inside.

I've had conversations with people over the years, and read some stuff, that really *has* communicated quite a lot about expectations and signalling conventions; possibly really trying to teach this stuff could be very valuable. (I'm sure they do a *great* job on Beta Colony.) On the other hand, our public schools are likely to try to use it to enforce a mainstream conformity that fits really *really* poorly for some people. On the third hand, the students are likely to repurpose the skills for their own needs anyway.

Lots of people have talked about appropriate ways for the person to express himself, but I think it's much more important to learn to read these cues in others (also, this may suggest ways to convey the information himself anyway). But being a little too blunt seems, to me, to be less serious than being clueless about interpreting what *other* people are conveying.

To DavE's suggestion that the student can count on the other students and teacher being "on his side" in a homeschooling situation I can't find an answer any more indirect than "bullshit". One would certainly *hope* for that, and it will be true quite a lot, but one cannot *count* on it. Also, there has been plenty of time for various dysfunctional interaction patterns to have evolved in the home, and getting some more people involved gives a chance to recognize and bypass or even break those. (Obviously that's very much a property of the *specific* case, and these comments are general since the question was general, merely sparked by and not actually *about* the specific case.)

[timprov.livejournal.com]

To DavE's suggestion that the student can count on the other students and teacher being "on his side" in a homeschooling situation I can't find an answer any more indirect than "bullshit".

I would turn that around a bit and say that there's unlikely to be any uncertainty in a homeschooling situation. There's no figuring out whether somebody's on your side or not, because you've been living in it.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

That gap between what people say and what it means: sounding it and acting accordingly. A lot of which is...body language, and knowing what our cultural euphemisms are -- what kind of tone and posture and content means blow-off-steam bitching and which is I want someone to fix this.

Basically, the art of reading people. *g*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And in this particular example, "our" cultural euphemisms tend to vary with gender. Sigh.

[howl-at-the-sun.livejournal.com]

Learning when it is appropriate to be quiet, and *thinking* about this before opening your mouth and saying something.

Also, topics of conversation. That is what stopped me from talking to people for quite some time. I could not assume that most of them would be game for a discussion of my current obsession, and I was not good at the "Where are you from?" sort of question.

And! how to start a conversation.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think lots of kids could probably benefit from a lesson in "conversation-starters, and what to do if they go awry in the following ways."

I think some of the hostility I occasionally encounter when I tell people I'm an only child is from people who wanted to start a conversation ("How old is your brother? Where does he live? What does he do? Is he married? Any kids, pets, hobbies of note?") and have had an avenue closed off to them.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I think a social skill that is useful and graceful is learning how to introduce yourself to someone in a social situation, such as a meeting, a party or on the job. The corollary is learning to introduce other people to each other in a social setting. It's fine to ease into a conversation, but at some point I want to know who I'm speaking with.

I learned that from my parents, not school. But it's come in handy all my life.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And knowing who you're speaking with is not limited to the information printed on their con name badge, either! Although sometimes the information you want is not information that can gracefully be conveyed in an introduction. "Lucy, do you know X? She was married to Y in the early '90s and has since dated Z, N, P, Q, and half of the R family. That I know of. All with spectacularly bad breakups. And A hates her -- totally do not bring up A in this conversation." Would that that were socially acceptable sometimes!

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

In a school situation the bulk of the "teaching" of social skills will come from the wide variety of kids he's exposed to, not the adults.

He needs to learn that people are often unfair and arbitrary and how to cope with that beyond "just walk away" or "tell a grown up".

He needs to learn how to tactfully acknowledge differences of lifestyle. Macrobiotic diets need to be "interesting" rather than "weird". The "scraf" the Muslim girl is wearing has a proper name beyond "head thingy".

He needs, especially with Asperger's to get in the habit of making eye contact, smiling when appropriate and displaying other visual/facial cues for other emotions.

He needs to sort out for himself when conformity is to be sought after and when he'd rather be an individual. There are Things We All Do to get along and Things It IS Okay To Do Differently. Interacting with the peer group will help him sort that out.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Aspies have one large advantage: they know they're not good at dealing with people.

An article in the New Yorker by an Aspie says he found Emily Post highly useful. The book explained ettiquette as a mechanism for making human interaction easier for all persons concerned.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

emily post sounds like a great idea. i would avoid miss manners, as while she's very funny and very useful, i think that a lot of her humor and usefulness depends on neurotypicality, and i think it might just be confusing to an aspie, at least to one of this age.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

conversation is like playing catch. if someone says something to you, they are throwing you the ball. then, since you are playing catch, you throw it back to them by acknowledging what they've said and adding on something new to give them something to respond to.

"hey, did you see the new transformers movie?"
"yeah! i saw that, and i really loved the part with the weasels!"
"oh that was fabulous. and that one weasel, the blue one, wasn't he also in friends?"

etcetera.

i cannot overstate how helpful it was to me to learn this.

there is also the crucial art of how to tell when someone is done talking to you and is trying to escape, but that's another story entirely.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

That metaphor was rather memorably shoved into my child-brain by a notable incident in a kids' book. Early in the school day the class was taught the catch metaphor for conversations, and later the narrator got in trouble when seeing the school nurse when she asked "Have your bowels moved today?" and he responded "No, have yours?"

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

The ability to leave a conversation quickly and gracefully when someone is boring the pants off you, without leaving the bore with a bad impression, and without making it clear that you can't wait to leave. Mind you, I learned this on elderly relatives, and it never really came up at school, but it's still an extremely useful social skill. Learning the signs of interest or boredom in others has been mentioned earlier, but it's also good to learn how and when it is polite to deploy those signs oneself.

Another useful social skill is the ability to figure out when it has become pointless to even try to be polite, and just how rude to be in the sequel-- the Asperger's kid I've known best can certainly identify 'direct physical threat, I should run for the hills', but has trouble with 'if I raise my voice and say three sharp words everything else will calm down', or 'it is all right to publicly ignore this person who has just publicly insulted me'.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And how to follow just enough of a relative's boring conversation to ask questions in the right spots when you absolutely can't escape, while still leaving much of your brain for something else. That's also useful.

And how to be rude in response: yes. The middle grounds between continuing to let someone walk all over you and committing assault on their person for being mildly rude.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I do not consider myself to have any degree of Asperger's (and nobody ever even considered diagnosing me with it), but I did have to learn, consciously, a number of social skills that others seemed to develop as easily as breathing. I've also been the person with the normal level of social skill interacting with someone who didn't know what they were doing wrong. So that's where this list is coming from.

It's important to understand the overt meaning of the cues and the expected response, but it's also important to understand which of them imply personal approval or disapproval of the recipient. And which of them don't.

Boredom signals have already been mentioned, but just as important is the closely-related signal that means "I would like this conversation to end now, because I have something else that I need to do." My friends in college used to call this the "stop bit" when complaining about a mutual acquaintance who was oblivious to it. (Carries neither approval nor disapproval.)

When one is proximate to but not involved in a conversation about an upcoming social event, there are signals indicating whether or not one would be welcome to speak up and express interest in coming along. Being oblivious to these either means you miss out on a lot of socializing (if you assume you're not welcome) or you get a reputation as always horning in. I still have trouble with these myself, so can't be more specific.

Noticing when nobody, or almost nobody, is laughing at your joke, and inferring from that a whole class of jokes that your hearers will not consider funny. Recognizing the difference between genuine laughter and polite laughter. Laughing only as much as is proper at your own jokes (too little and people may not understand that you meant something as a joke; too much and you will not be paying attention to whether or not anyone else is; personally, I think erring on the side of deadpan is safest).

Polite stubbornness in the face of bureaucratic indifference, recognizing that the person behind the counter is probably having a much worse day than you are and at the same time that doesn't mean your problem is unworthy.

Proper conduct in an argument. About this, entire books could be written, but common errors include insisting on having the last word; ignoring refutations of one's theses; ignoring direct questions; assuming that one's own worldview is the only possible worldview; equating an attack on one's position to an attack on one's character; and contrariwise, using a character attack to refute a position.

Perhaps even more important for Asperger's people, knowing what the effect of starting, joining, continuing, reopening, or avoiding an argument will be on other people's opinion of you. And, knowing how to be neither a doormat nor a hothead.

With regard to girls (or boys, if that turns out to be the preference) the one thing I wish someone woulda told me in plain words is "this is the way they look at you when they want you to ask them out, and this is the way they look at you when they want to be kissed." It is also useful to know that on a first date, it's perfectly fine to do just the same things one would do when hanging out as friends; and in fact it's perfectly fine for the first four or five dates to be ambiguous between "this is a date" and "we are friends hanging out together."

[zwol.livejournal.com]

... wow, that was long.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

Might NLP training be useful? (How close is being able to fake social skills to actually having them?)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Maybe something to look into when he's a little older.

[rosefox]

I was never formally diagnosed with Asperger's, but looking back on my interactions in my childhood and teens, it's quite likely that I have it or something like it, and have developed a lot of very good coping mechanisms. These are the things I found most useful to learn:

1) Other people think differently than I do. I will not always be able to know what they're thinking from what they say, or understand how they got to that point of view even after they explain it. The train of thought may not appear logical and is probably affected by their history, mood, and other unknowable factors. Also, people tend to dislike explaining themselves, so sometimes I will just have to guess what they're thinking and how they got there. Everyone develops different coping strategies for this, but simply accepting it is probably the most important step (and was, for me, extremely difficult).

As a corollary, even if I explain myself, people will not always understand me. In addition, they will not always be able to tell what I'm thinking, and will guess, and will sometimes guess wrong. They will not always be patient with my efforts to explain myself at length, especially in emotionally charged situations. This was hard to accept too, and even now, when a misunderstanding of my intentions leads to hurt feelings, I have to really work at soothing the hurt feelings before trying to explain myself. For many Aspies, logic and comprehension of a situation are everything. It's really, really hard to grasp that for most NTs they are separate from feeling comfortable and safe, and rank much lower than nonverbal gestures of reassurance (see below).

I dealt with a lot of this by picking up behavior patterns from fantasy novels, believe it or not. I loved reading about things like Irish rules of guestship and chivalry and proper court manners, because they were rules and everyone followed them. Eventually I graduated to Miss Manners books, which were fantastic for making sense of social interaction and learning how to anticipate other people's needs and desires without losing track of my own.

(cont.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And even logic is dependent upon what axioms you're using. You'll end up with different results in different geometries. Some people exist in fundamentally different geometries from each other.

[rosefox]

2) People communicate a lot in tone of voice. I had to learn not only to understand other people's tones but to modulate my own. Learning the right phrases is not enough. Until I learned to adjust my tone of voice for the situation, people usually thought I was upset or angry, and often assumed I was upset or angry with them or taking my upsetness or anger out on them. That tended to go very badly. I suspect that not watching television put me at a disadvantage here, but in great part, I simply could not hear myself the way others heard me. I had to consciously figure out rules for tonal communication--a low voice sounds calmer and less threatening, lowering one's voice at the end of a sentence lends weight to what one is saying, the word "please" is essential but emphasizing it makes you sound exasperated or whiny--and then practice using them until I got it right. A class on public speaking was essential to this process, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn effective communication of any sort.

Likewise, an understanding of body language is essential, both reading and displaying. I suspect it would be most useful to read up on this, preferably in a book with pictures of various poses and explanations of why they convey threat, concern, or whatever. I learned it from observation, descriptions of body language in fiction, and some research (sources long since forgotten) into how psychologists analyze the body language of patients. As with tone of voice, an Aspie's default posture is easily viewed as threatening, because we get very tense trying to consciously absorb everything that's going on and make sense of it and figure out the right way to react. Those with tactile issues or a lot of social anxiety/agoraphobia may also adopt very body-protective posture: hunched back, arms crossed over the chest, etc. I had to put a lot of effort into learning to notice when I was doing these things and consciously adopt more open body language, even when it was kind of terrifying to do so. I also found that it was better to exaggerate than understate.

All of this got easier once I figured out how to be comfortable in my body. On the flip side, getting out of my head and into my body was hard. I would really recommend that any kid who has this problem take classes in dance, acting, martial arts, anything that explicitly encourages getting comfortable in your body. Avoid things like improv or fast-moving contact sports; it's easy for them to get overwhelming. Yoga is especially good, especially in small groups or private lessons. Be prepared--and make sure the instructor is prepared, and likely to respond appropriately--for occasional strong emotional reactions, especially when doing stretching or relaxation exercises, as emotional stress can be unexpectedly released when muscular stress is released and muscle relaxation can also lead to intense feelings of vulnerability. Get a head start on this as far before puberty as possible; it'll make dealing with those changes much easier, and body awareness and comfort are really important when dealing with romantic and sexual advances.

All of this is very general, but it's also very widely applicable. I hope your friends' son has gotten a good grounding in these things already; if not, maybe this will give them some good ideas where to start.

[rose-and-ivy.livejournal.com]

I love your second comment. I too have had a very hard time getting out of my head and into my body, and developing a more 'open' stance around other people -- I was a classic example of hunched-over-arms-crossed type of stance that says "go away" to most people. Dancing has been the most help with that, you NEED a very confidant, open sort of body stance for any dance to look good.

I love the idea of picking up on social patterns from fantasy novels. It must make what's otherwise a very frustrating and mysterious process much more fun.

[one-undone.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this post, M'ris. I've learned a lot from the comments you've received. This is all extremely valuable stuff for us. You're the only person who's dared to question what these much touted "social skills" were that D. was supposed to learn in school, and I'm glad you did. It's easy to accept without question that something is necessary if everyone is telling you it's so, but that doesn't make accepting it correct or even useful. We're STILL questioning the school situation, believe it or not, and tonight a new kink has been thrown into the mix -- D. came to me and specifically asked me to pull him out of school. J. and I are still sorting things out and deciding what to do, so the timing of this post couldn't have been better. Thanks for examining the issue more closely.

[vahepeatus.livejournal.com]

"D. came to me and specifically asked me to pull him out of school"

I understand that every situation is different, but I wanted to share my experience.

When my son was 9 I was able to enroll him in a private school. He moved forward academically much faster in the private school, but hated the school. When I enrolled him to the same school for next year, as I WAS happy with his progress and the private school had smaller classes and wider curriculum, my 10 year old asked me: "So you think I am too stupid to manage my life with public school education?"

So I did decide that the message that he IS (going to be) the smith of his own fate, that his preferences DO matter and I DO trust him to do his best in choosing the way how to go on with his life is more important than merely academic progress.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

There are some extremely good points here - great question!

The ability to recognise when somebody wants the conversation to stop, and why, and how to give the range of those signals yourself is an important one, and one that people have already raised.

There are a whole host of subtle variations, as well - for example, conversations between two people of my acquaintance can sometimes turn slightly awkward: person 1 likes to share his latest enthusiasms and is not always good at noticing the subtler 'stop' signals; person 2 tends to assume that this sort of conversation is boasting rather than simple excitement. Neither person is reading the other terribly well, but it would be difficult to explain in the abstract what cues are being missed.

Oh, another point: learning (and remembering in the heat of the moment) that other people may find something offensive, upsetting or difficult, even when you don't, and that that is OK. The important thing at that moment is to recognise the person's reaction and to work out whether there is something that you need to do to help (this bit being enough for a discussion in itself); understanding why they react differently to you, or explaining your own reaction can come later.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Reading excitement as boasting is something that really, really bothers me when I encounter it now. It's so foreign to my current group of friends that "I was reading such-and-such the other day" could ever come off as "look how smart I am," in part because you assume that everyone is smart enough to do that sort of thing for fun, it's just that not everyone is interested in that particular topic. So I find it jarring to readjust to "I am interested in X" being a potential signal of self-perceived superiority. It's just--not how we do things around here.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

And something else I occasionally find difficult is working out an acceptable level of eye contact, especially if I'm having an intense discussion. I find I'm comfortable with a higher level of eye contact than most people are, and while everything's usually fine if I don't think about it, once I've held a gaze for slightly too long or am worried I might have, I start losing ability to handle it automatically.

There are probably percentages of time people in a given culture will look at the other person's eyes/their face/around the room for various values of interest in the topic of conversation, but I'm not sure what they'd be. It's difficult to give rules, because you can't just alternate gazing into someone's eyes and staring at their left ear, but I can imagine it being useful for someone to be given a rough idea of where they are on the scale of 'besotted' to 'looking for an escape route'.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

The power of a sincere apology, and the knowledge that while an apology is powerful, it does not erase the action which necessitated the apology - it only mitigates it.

"Being honest," is not an excuse for saying wantonly hurtful things, and honesty among friends is not characterized by lawyerly parsing.

On another note, '"I think that what our culture does with kids like him is the equivalent of sending a kid off to school and saying, "Okay, now you should be learning math. We're not going to tell you where the math books are. They're somewhere in the building, and they have something to do with one of your classes. Go learn math." "What kind of math?" "Y'know, math. It's important. The same math everyone else your age has learned."'

It is frightening, but that is how the public schools in my hometown handled everyone.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, lawyerly parsing, yes. And it may well be that like many smart people, he'll have to learn how to explain, "Oh, I thought you were saying X," in a way that doesn't come out as, "But YOU SAID X and that meant I THOUGHT Y so therefore I AM RIGHT AND ALL THIS IS YOUR FAULT."

[jenett]

Along with some other great comments - learning that there are different 'dialects' of social skills, and which one's appropriate at which time (and which defaults you can get away with because they'll be generally inoffensive.)

As a transplant to the Midwest, I still hit this one periodically.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And when to confess, "I'm not from around here," and have that come out as useful information for the other person to have.