We are Social Detectives

At long last I have inspiration for a new post.  I have learned of a new curriculum that I have been teaching the kids.  At first I resisted it, because it seems rather silly, and I was afraid it would not click, but I was Oh, so wrong!!  There is a lot of material available, but I just used two of the books.  The first one is called Social Detective.  It discusses Social Smarts.  It introduces the idea that people are watching us and our behaviors.  They notice when we do things that are "EXPECTED" and "UNEXPECTED".   When we do things that are "EXPECTED", people are COMFORTABLE with us, and they have good feelings about us, AND we have good feelings about our self because we are doing expected behaviors.  When we do things that are "UNEXPECTED", people are UNCOMFORTABLE, and they don't want to be around us.  Also, we don't have good thoughts about our selves because we are making people feel uncomfortable.  THE KIDS REALLY SEEM TO GET IT!!  "Unexpected" is a perfect word!  It gives everyone a word to use when maybe they want to say "inappropriate" or "unacceptable" and those words seem too negative.  Kids want to argue about the fact that someone throwing a fit is what is expected of that person because they do it every day.  The answer is that throwing a fit is STILL unexpected behavior.  It might be typical or common or even expected of that person, but it is STILL "Unexpected" behavior.  The great thing is that the teachers and all of the adults in the school love it too.  They are using it with their spouses and their kids.  If you have someone in your life that you have trouble communicating with about their behaviors, give it a try.  Really, if we are doing things that make people feel uncomfortable, we probably want to know.  This is a way that makes it easier to digest.