In a world brimming with communication channels, understanding the nuances of social skills in children has never been more critical.
“The present generation, Generation Z is the most technologically-embedded and involved of any generation up till now, and they’re frankly in trouble.” Dr. Stephen Nowicki offered up that stark assessment through his lens as a leading child development authority and clinical psychologist, who has taught at Emory University in Atlanta for more than four decades.
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Welcome to where parents talk. My name is Lianne Castelino. Our guest today is a clinical psychologist and a Child Development Authority. Dr. Steven Nowicki has taught at Emory University in Atlanta for more than 40 years, and is a founding fellow of the American Psychological Society. He has authored numerous publications, books, and is a media contributor. Dr. Nikki is also a father and a grandfather, whose latest book is called Raising a socially successful child. Dr. Nikki joins us today from Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you so much for being here.
Dr. Nowicki we continue to live in a time where there have never been more ways for us to communicate with each other. How has this landscape impacted the social skills of kids today, in your view?
terrifically. When I when I was young, I mean, I roamed by neighborhoods, I knew all the people in my in my neighborhood that we had placement that walked the beat, we had nurses that came to visit I was surrounded by family, I would ride my bike go someplace, and the people would know me and smile and, and carry on. And over time that’s eroded. And the present generation, generation Z is the is the most technologically embedded and involved of any generation up till now. And they’re frankly in trouble. They were in trouble before the pandemic and the pandemic made it even worse. And I think in some ways, it’s because of their, their passion for and their use of screens. I believe the most important thing we do as human beings is to form relationships, to be able to connect with others and to be able to form the kinds of relationships that help us survive to begin with, and then bring us joy the rest of our lives. And, and in this process of trying to learn to connect is is determined a lot by how we communicate with one another well how we managed to, to make one another know that we want to be connected and that we are willing to do certain things. And what’s happened with the use of screens is that the kinds of experiences children need to learn in order to connect in real life with one another has been eroded that use of cell phones and computers and websites and so forth. They’re finding their place, but they take time away from the real face to face interactions that we really need to have in order to make relationships work. And then the pandemic hit. And that took what little time, there was a way completely and isolated kids for up to two years. And what I think and what my latest book is, is about is the fact that what has been taken from them is a language that previous generations had learned through interactions with one another. And that’s nonverbal communication. It’s it’s, it’s a language that has some very unique characteristics, but most of all, it needs to, to learn it, you need to be an interaction in real life with one another. And that’s been taken away. And because of that, I think the present generation is is hindered quite a bit, and how to make connections work with one another.
We’re going to talk specifically about what we mean when we say nonverbal communication, why it’s important and impactful, but I just like to unpack a little bit about what you said there you set the context for how you grew up and where we are today. But what is your general assessment of the social skills of kids today? Because it was, in your estimation in issue before the pandemic as well? Yes.
They’re, they’re less able. Simply put, they’re less able to connect and and be because it not because they can’t learn what they need to learn in order to connect with one another, it’s that they haven’t been given the opportunity. There’s a number of numbers of researchers have pointed out how much time, the average time that children used to spend with one another, and what they spend now. And it’s like, close to eight hours a week difference, which if you multiply that over a year is that they’re losing weeks of time with one another, to learn about how to interact, and this sort of discernible of loss has taken place. Really, without people really knowing what the knowing first of all, that they’re losing something and what the this loss really means, and children’s ability to make and connect with others. So it’s something that that, I think, children who were having social problems, before the pandemic, were really hit the most. And I’ve talked with teachers and, and with parents, about the fact that these children really have have been impacted the most, because they were already behind. And taking a year or two away from the kinds of experiences they needed to have to, to make relationships work. Was really damaging. If I can leave, let me let me just back up just a little bit. And explain what I what I’m talking about when I talk about relationships. I think all relationships go through a process of choice, beginning, deepening, and ending. This is a sequence that you go through and you need skills at each of these, each of these places in order to make it set successfully from from choosing the right people to beginning the right way to deepening and making friends and then ending or going through a transition, where you sort of have an opportunity to look back over what you did, to find out what you did good or bad, so that you can choose to begin your next set of relationships better. So that I feel they’re the most important thing we do as human beings. If you’re good at them, you’re going to be happy. And if you’re not good, you’re not going to be happy. And I don’t care how much money you have, I don’t care how cognitively smart you are, if you can’t form relationships can’t connect with other people, life is not going to be that pleasant for you. And so children need to be able to have skills to be able to do each of these different places in the relationship process. And we’re going to get to nonverbal communication, because I think that’s, that’s the key to making these relationships work.
Let’s talk about families where, let’s say the communication within the family is already perhaps challenging or challenged. So now you add kids in the mix, you have the pandemic, you add screen, social media, all these things that you’ve alluded to, that further complicates the already challenged communication environment. So how does a parent in that context even know that they may have an issue with a child and preparing them to be socially successful?
Well, I think I think they got to be aware, that’s that’s the first thing to have to be aware. And I think I’m gonna, I’m think I’m going to have to talk a little bit about nonverbal communication here because it’s, it’s, it’s the key within families, children, children are, this relationship process starts very early, you need to be able to, as an infant to be able to, to connect with somebody in order to to, to make things work if they survive. And kids are sort of born with some sort of innate behaviors that pull others to, to be with them and care for them. And during the first year, that you are a mother and a child or in relationship with one another. The child attaches to the mother and they form a connection. And in some ways, I think this is this is probably the most intimate relationship that is anyone will ever have is the mother child relationship. During the first year of life, there’s an intimacy and a connection that really can’t be found later. And the important part about that is it’s nobody understands a word. Words are not used. It’s all nonverbal. Its touch, it faces its tone of voice, it’s, its space, it’s. And this whole connection and the importance of nonverbal communication is, is very evident. Because the baby can’t understand words. When words comes a lot words come along, that, you know, all of a sudden, this this wonderful sort of new way of communicating words comes into existence. And, and parents get so excited by that, and they write down the first word, and my son, I was with him for, I did a lot of the caretaking. And I’ve been saying, Dad, that dad hoping he’s gonna say, Dad, dad, and he said orange juice. That was his first word. So there you have it. But that sort of supernova of the another way of communicating besides nonverbal kind of masks, the importance of nonverbal communication. A lot of parents will write down the first word that a child has said, no parent I know, puts down the first time that a child waved bye bye, or did another nonverbal gesture, the words really become sort of the focus of parents attention. And they worked very hard to make children use words better. But all along, nonverbal communication is also getting more complex and better, and still governing the way that people connect and interact with one another. You asked about how parents, when children and families and parents need to sort of what can they do to help their children? The first thing they can do, I think, is to be aware of their own nonverbal communication. And their own sort of preoccupation with screens. There. This was a Pew Foundation survey done, in which the children they are mostly middle aged middle childhood or early adolescence, children were asked about the things that annoyed them most about their parents. And the answer was that the parents spent more time on screens when they were talking to them than they liked. In other words, to parents were on their phones or on their computer, when they were interacting with their children. And that sort of short circuits, the kind of modeling and so forth that needs to take place. So the first thing I would say is that parents need to be aware of their own way of communicating and the sort of what they are being able to provide for their children to learn from and, and use. And I think awareness is maybe the key that unlocks the doors to other sorts of interactions that might take place. I don’t know if that answers your question, but it’s sort of I think that’s would be the one of the important components.
Absolutely. Let’s go through some of those nonverbal cues. You talked about what they look like, when children are in their first year of life as babies. Beyond that, though, as you know, children, teens, tweens, adolescents, young adults, what are some, you know, just general examples of what nonverbal cues include, and why are these important? Okay,
well, there’s, there’s a lot of them, there’s there’s facial expressions. There’s tones of voice, there’s postures, there’s gestures, there’s personal space, the space we carry around with us. There’s touch perhaps the most important and and first learn nonverbal. Part of speech is rhythm. There is a woman developmental, kinesiology just there’s somebody that studies this sort of body movements, did a study and with newborn infants, and she put a metronome next to newborn infants bands, and the metronome what she put at different rates of speed, boom, boom, boom, boom, there was one rate of speed, where the infant fell asleep faster than any other rate of speed. And that was the mother’s heart rate. And that’s already, that’s already there, that sort of rhythm is already there. When you think of relationships, you think of the fact that you have a give and take relationships have a rhythm. You’ve asked me a question. I respond. I’m perhaps talking too much. But that’s okay. Because my nonverbals are going to save me here is that you can you can, there’s a rhythm and you’re not in your head, which says, Keep talking. And, and I’m looking for that. And there is a rhythm back and forth, that children need to learn if they’re going to be able to interact. And that is a crucial first phase of showing how the importance of relationships. Do you want me to go through each of these? Or do
I wanted you to highlight the ones that you think really are the most important and this long list of important nonverbal cues?
Yeah, I think I think rhythm is is basic to everything. In fact, I think it’s so basic that I think, and so often, it’s not paid attention to that needs to be attention needs to be paid to it, especially mothers of or parents of younger children. There is a program called music together. I don’t know if you’ve have you heard of that at all. But it’s a place where they teach music education. And they bring the young children all the way from six months of age to age, cyber six, into a session, where they’re teaching the children basic music, education, what music is all about how to how to play things and sing, and I had heard about it. And I went to attend a class, I sat, sat on the side. And they’ve classes run by us this Adickes, this case of woman, and the kids all come in and they’re crawling all over each other, and the parents are holding them and it’s this sort of chaotic, and the instructor comes in and suddenly starts and some kids pay attention, others go wandering around, and then she starts singing hello to you. Hello, attune. This Wendy says hello to Janine, Miss Wendy. And the rhythm goes. And pretty soon the kids come together. And it’s. And what it does is it teaches children about rhythm. Working together. They make sounds, they they run around the room. And the parents are there with them. And the when you see the first class, it’s chaos. Some kids are listening, some parents don’t know what to do there. Everybody’s a little bit embarrassed. When you get to the last class, over time, the children have learned that there is a rhythm to interaction, that you play this when somebody makes this sound, you make this sound back. And not only were the children learning that, but the parents were learning that. And they were able to interact with their children at the end of these eight sessions, in a way that that I sat and thought, This is what relationship communication is all about. And the children were learning in music education, but they also were learning rhythm. And that’s one of the ways that I think parents and grandparents can help their children learn about the rhythm of interaction is through music and song and give and take in that way. So again, back to rhythm. facial expressions, of course, are the one or the thing that maybe most people think about when they think about nonverbal communication. You know, a lot songs are written about your, your facial expressions, the you know, your eyes, especially the eyes of Texas are outputting you, your smiling eyes. It’s something that we learn to pay attention to. And we’re born with a little bit of a, of a sort of neurological advantage in that, at six months of age. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this Lianne Have you ever noticed walking by a child an infant of about six months, when you walk past their eyes lock onto your eyes, and they follow you? All the way across? Yeah. And, and they don’t look at your knees, they don’t look at your shoulder, eye to eye all the way across. And that’s sort of the gift of of inheritance to say, this is they know what they’re supposed to be looking at this trying to find out what’s going on. And, and so we learn to read faces. We learn to, to understand faces, there is a with infants, there is something if you if you want to understand how important faces are to social interaction. There’s a set of studies that have been done with the neutral face. I don’t know if anybody’s ever talked about that on your show. No, but there is a what they do is they get toddlers have toddlers and they train their assistants to be able to do this experiment, because it’s very hard. The toddler sit there and play and they’re playing interacting with them. And they’re playing all sorts of games and say how are you and the child is smiling back. And then the experimenter loses all expression in her face, and just sits there. And it’s fascinating to watch. It’s called the resting face experiment. The child first looks tries to do some things. And then, after a while, begins to become upset. The one the couple of times I watched this one, one cute, cute little toddler was just wondering what was going on this lovely play person, and nothing and nothing and she took off. And then she She took out her one big weapon. And she went patty cake. And that and still the woman didn’t, didn’t break down and smile and she started in tears. Children need that kind of nonverbal interaction with your face, big faces big expressions in order to understand where they are, and to feel like they’re in connection with one another. The man who did this experiment said he had to train his assistants, weeks so they could keep this face and not fall into the thing of smiling back to the baby with the taller than they were doing.
You know, it’s so interesting to hear you talk about this doctrine, a wiki from the point of view of babies and toddlers and young children. But the fact of the matter is, is connection, relationships, communication tools. These things are what we experience across the lifespan. So can you take us through why nonverbal communication and having that skill is important, not just as babies and toddlers, but certainly beyond that.
Okay. infancy and preschool are training grounds for what happens next. They’re the places in in toddlerhood, you’re trying to give the baby a firm attachment, get them connected. understand the basics of nonverbal communication. Words come in. Suddenly, there’s an explosive. Two ways in these two ways of communicating continue on. Preschool is where parents play a part in playgroups getting their children involved with other kids, watching what they’re doing and giving feedback about how they’re doing, teaching, in essence, the social skills that the children will need to have when they want to leave the family. The step from preschool to full time school is a huge one. And the first five years or four or five years of life is preparation for that. And that’s why I spent a significant amount of time talking about that time, because that’s where the parents get a chance to train their children in the skills that they will need when they make this transition. The transition to full time school is a huge one, because in school is the first time that the child will be interacting with a number of peers. And adults who are strangers, with the rules that they have learned at home. And all children will have some kind of, they’ll be better at some things and and than others. If you come from a family that is quiet and introverted, you won’t be very good at expressive, but you may be able to pick up subtle cues and others, if you come from a family where everything is is very expressive. You might be really good at that. But you might miss the subtle cues. So you bring your whatever you have into school, full time school, and you try to find out if it works. And that’s why school is so very important. And that’s why the preschool stuff is so important because it’s preparation for what happens there. And there the difference is, is that before one gets the full time school, most relationships are top down, you have parents telling their children what to do. When you get to school, you suddenly have a situation where the child is with a number of other children, and they need to be able to interact with equals. So they won’t be they might be telling them my my daddy says this is what we do. But the other kids that my dad, he says we do a different way. And you have to negotiate. So full time school is where the rubber meets the road. And we’re kids really begin to apply what they’ve learned previously in this situation. And they need the full repertoire of nonverbal skills, they need to be able to know the rhythm of interaction, so they don’t interrupt. They need to know personal space, they need to know how far to stand away from another child. When speaking to them. They know when, when to be loud, when you have your playground voice, you have your their voice, you they need to know when to smile, when what it means when another child has an angry face. All of these nonverbal behaviors become crucially important for making decisions as to who you choose to begin a relationship with, how you manage to make those relationships into friends. And all of the nonverbal channels are important in that regard.
Dr. Nikki, what does a socially successful child look like?
Somebody who is at ease with other kids. It it’s somebody who is has the kind of when you come into when I watch when I go to schools and I watch children, I’m usually there to evaluate and find whether there will be children who will have problems. And I’ve mostly watch at transitions. And if you watch children at transitions, the differences between those who are socially successful and those who are not, becomes very apparent dislike the the socially successful ones are outlined in one color and the ones who are having trouble in another. And the this kids who are having trouble are out of step with others. They usually aren’t smiling. They usually are more likely to be alone. Or if they’re with other children. There is some sort of difficulty occurring. The Socialist successful child the one characteristic socially successful child children have is they smile more. They smile more. They keep their gesture Teachers, mostly to themselves, they don’t they don’t go out here. They’re They’re close in with their gestures. They usually have when they’re when they’re interacting with other children, they keep a personal space of about three to four feet, they don’t get too close. And they don’t touch other children without getting permission from the other children. All these things are are lacking in those kids who don’t know quite how they connect with others. But they want to and in their their sort of rush to to connect they they miss use nonverbal missed cues and aren’t able to pick up the cues that say stay away. Or, you know, don’t don’t come so close.
Dr. Nikki, you’ve described your book raising socially successful, embracing us socially successful child as an effort that you’ve wanted to tackle for more than 10 years. Can you tell us what you want readers of this book to walk away with?
I want them to walk away with an appreciation for how important relationships are. I want them to walk away with the with the realization that they have parents and teachers have a responsibility to help their children learn the skills that they need to have in order to have a chance at making friends and being adjusted. And that parents and children parents and teachers now have to do more than they did before. Because children today’s generation has have less of an opportunity to learn the nonverbal skills that they need to have in order to make relationships work. So that parents and teachers now have to have to be able to help them in ways that they didn’t have to do before and that they accept this responsibility. And in the book, I tried to outline very simple, straightforward ways that parents and teachers as well can provide for their children so that children can learn the basics of what they need to have nonverbally in order to connect with other kids and have a chance at making the kinds of friends that makes life meaningful and fun.
Dr. Stephen, no wiki clinical psychologist and author of raising a socially successful child. Really appreciate your time and your insight. Thank you so much.
Thank you
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“They were in trouble before the pandemic and the pandemic made it even worse,” Dr. Nowicki told Lianne Castelino, during an interview for Where Parents Talk. “I think in some ways, it’s because of their passion for and their use of screens.”
A father and grandfather, Dr. Nowicki is also a founding fellow of the American Psychological Society and an author. His shares the science on this topic in his latest book is called, ‘Raising a Socially Successful Child’.
“I believe the most important thing we do as human beings is to form relationships, to be able to connect with others and to be able to form the kinds of relationships that help us survive to begin with, and then bring us joy the rest of our lives.”
The Impact of Technological Advancements on Social Skills
Reflecting on his own childhood, Dr. Nowicki contrasted it with the experiences of today’s children. “When I was young, I roamed my neighbourhood, knowing all the people around. Over time, this has eroded,” he says, noting the significant shift with Generation Z being the most technologically immersed generation. This immersion, he says, has profoundly affected their ability to form real-life connections, a skill crucial for personal happiness and success.
“The pandemic only exacerbated these issues,” he explains. “Children were already struggling, and the pandemic isolated them further, stripping away critical face-to-face interactions needed to develop nonverbal communication skills.” He emphasizes that these nonverbal skills are essential for forming meaningful relationships.
Understanding Nonverbal Communication
Dr. Nowicki elaborates on the importance of nonverbal communication, describing it as a “language that previous generations learned through interactions.” This language includes facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, and personal space. He says that while verbal communication is often celebrated (like noting a child’s first word), nonverbal cues play an equally vital role but are frequently overlooked.
He shares an example from a music program where children and parents engage in musical activities that teach the rhythm of interaction. “Through music and song, children learn the give-and-take rhythm essential for effective communication,” he says, stressing the foundational role of rhythm in social interactions.
Social Skills Across the Lifespan
Dr. Nowicki underscores that the skills learned in infancy and early childhood lay the groundwork for future interactions. He describes the transition to full-time school as a crucial phase where children apply these skills in a broader social context. “In school, children interact with peers and adults who are strangers, requiring them to use a full repertoire of nonverbal skills.”
A socially successful child, he explains, is one who is at ease with peers, smiles often, respects personal space, and uses gestures appropriately. “Socially successful children tend to smile more, keep their gestures close, and maintain a comfortable personal space.”
The Role of Parents and Teachers
When asked how parents can identify and address communication challenges within the family, Dr. Nowicki advises that awareness is key. He points out that even parents can be guilty of over-relying on screens, setting a poor example for their children. “Parents need to be aware of their own nonverbal communication and their screen usage when interacting with their children.”
He stresses that parents and teachers must now take a more active role in teaching these skills due to the reduced opportunities for children to learn them organically.
“My goal is for parents and teachers to recognize their responsibility in helping children develop the necessary nonverbal skills to make and maintain friendships,” he says. “In my book, I outline straightforward ways to achieve this, aiming to give children a chance at meaningful and joyful relationships.”
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