Scott Schimmel (00:08.91)
In a recent survey of over 800 hiring managers, they said that recent college graduates struggle with eye contact. Will your kid have the social skills that they need to thrive? That's the question in this episode. I'm Scott Schimel. I'm the president and chief guide of The YouSchool For over 20 years, I've been guiding young adults to make the transition from childhood to adulthood so that they can be successful and fulfilled. Yeah.
It's not automatic that people will have the social skills that they need. Where do you learn it? Do you learn it in school? Do you learn in sports? Do you learn it at home? I know that as I've worked with young people there is a night and day difference between someone that you can have a conversation with and someone that can't look you in the eye. Someone that will interact with you and ask you questions and have thoughtful answers to the questions you ask and someone who just
Responds with short answers. I'm sure you've been around your kid as a parent Especially when they were little and they were awkward socially awkward Most kids don't pop out of the womb being charming and Charismatic and thoughtful and engaging There's a training that has to go on What would you say are the top three social skills that your kids will need to have and I'm talking about work?
But there's also an element, if you look on kind of both sides of life, whether it's work or personal life, where social skills are like a prerequisite, whether you think through the lens of achievement or fulfillment, can you imagine them putting together healthy relationships, whether it's with a significant other or loved one or friends without good social skills, can you imagine them doing well at work? Of course, without making eye contact, but it...
Social skills goes so far beyond just having a conversation. There's emotional intelligence involved. There's listening. There's the ability to speak your mind and point of view. There's the ability to make connections when someone is sharing something to respond. There's so much that goes into social skills. What would you say are the most essential ones? And if we get some clarity on that, the next question will be, how do we guide our kids?
Scott Schimmel (03:02.638)
so that they can learn them. Number one, we need to model and demonstrate good social skills for them. This is one of those things that you can try to teach it in a workshop or an acronym, but social skills are absolutely more caught than taught. So the challenge for me personally, do I let my kids be around me when I interact with others? I find one of my instincts,
If one of my kids is listening into a conversation I have, even if it's a neighbor outside, I'll just kind of say, hey, Shoo, go away. If I have a work phone call or a Zoom call, I want to keep that private. I think partially because I don't like people listening to me, maybe a little insecurity, but also when I'm with them, I want to be present with them. So I don't take calls typically if I'm in the car with them.
or if I'm at an activity or just sitting around on the couch, I'll save that for later, or I'll go outside and take the call. I just, I don't know. So my challenge for myself is to be more intentional to model and demonstrate good social skills for them. Second, sink or swim. We need to put our kids in scenarios where they have to learn how to have good social skills. We make them work. We invite other family friends over.
and include our kids. We're intentional to let our friends ask our kids questions without answering for them. We let them sink or swim. That's how they learn. We need to put them in challenging situations so that they can test out and train and learn how to have the social skills that they need. Third, we give them feedback. And we do this without shame, without criticism, without intensity.
But later on in a safe space, hey, I noticed, and feedback isn't just always critique, feedback can also be, you're such a good listener. I was just noticing you the other day when we had friends over for dinner and you were really, you were like totally engaged, active listening, you were nodding, you were saying, hmm. And let that be what it is. Then to say, also, when they asked you a question, I noticed that you only gave them like,
Scott Schimmel (05:25.006)
a really short answer.
And then hear what they have to say. Yeah, well, I didn't know what to say. Or they might say, I feel uncomfortable. Or what do you mean? I answered the question. And then your feedback can be based on what they say. well, something that helps me is to think in advance and anticipate the kinds of questions that people will probably ask you. They will probably, when they come over, ask you, how's it going? They will probably ask you,
how's school, they'll probably ask you about your summer plans. They'll probably ask you about your college plans or your job plans. So knowing that they're gonna ask those questions, you can actually do a little bit of work ahead of time to come up with your answers, more interesting answers. You might even come up with a story. That's the kind of feedback that we can give to our kids that can actually tutor them and guide them and instruct them how to do it better than finally we can script them.
From time to time, it's important to realize that our kids don't know what to say. They don't know what to do because they haven't been in this situation before. They've never learned this. It reminds me when my son had his first car a few months ago and his car was breaking over and over and over again and we would go into the auto mechanic together. And the first couple of times I was very clear, I'm gonna do the talking. But soon my goal is for you.
to have these conversations. So the first couple, I did all the talking and afterwards when we walked out, we would literally debrief it. What'd you notice? What did you learn? It is intense, isn't it? Would you have done anything differently? And he was very much engaged. And it turned into we were going together, but he was talking and I would even tell him that, hey, it's his car, you can talk to him. And then by the time we were done, he was on the phone talking to the mechanic without even me in the room.
Scott Schimmel (07:23.214)
So there's actually a training structure that I'm illuminating here. We can script it for them. Hey, when you call, here's something that you can say. When you go and you're having that dinner and it's the dinner before prom, here, what I like to do is even write down some questions I'm gonna ask. Here's a question. I mean, literally scripting. How can we, again, kind of zooming out, how can we expect that our kids would have...
the social skills that they need, if we don't teach them how. And one idea is you just let them figure it out as they go. But I recognize that my kids need more than that. They need more than just figure it out on your own, especially in today's competitive environment, especially today, whether it's college admissions or job applications, they need our help to learn the social skills that are necessary for them to be both successful.
and happy fulfilled people. Love to hear from you. What do you think are the most important social skills and how do you teach them to the next generation?
