Joining a conversation

This blog post is a transcript of Episode 91 of my podcast/YouTube series. Because of that, it is not written to be grammatically/syntactically correct.

You can listen here and watch here.

Once upon a time, there were autistic, ADHD, and anxious students who struggled when it came to joining a conversation.

Some students interrupted others or asked things like, “What are you guys talking about?” to try to join conversations.

Others tried to be silly or made the conversation all about them when trying to join.

And then there were students who never even tried to join conversations.

I created the lesson we are talking about this week for all these students.  

In this lesson, I teach students when and how to join a conversation, as well as WHY we join conversations. We also talk about how sometimes, despite the fact that we did nothing wrong, things don’t work out the way we want them to.  

In addition to getting the information, students in my groups have the opportunity to practice joining conversations and engaging in discussions with their peers about what it looks and feels like when they successfully implement the things we discuss.

This week, the random number generator has determined that we are talking about the lesson in my program about joining a conversation. Every lesson is applicable to all three of the shapes: circles, triangles and squares, because, for the most part, they struggle with the same things. The reason behind it may be different, and the methodology to help them learn new skills may be different, but most of the things that I teach in my program apply to every social type, because they're all things that my students struggle with or just haven't learned about yet.

The first thing I want to share about this lesson is, on my website, when you look at the curriculum and you look at the schedule, there's a checklist next to each module. That checklist is based on what concepts are taught in that module. So a parent or a teacher can look at that checklist and use it to determine: Is this information that my kiddo could benefit from? So that's what I want to share first. I want to look at the checklist to just give us an idea of where we're going today with this lesson.

The first thing on the checklist: Student doesn't know how to engage in social conversations, as opposed to informational conversations. An informational conversation is when we are just looking for information. When we're asking someone for directions, when we are asking someone for facts about something, when we're trying to learn something about the world. That's an informational conversation.

A social conversation is when we're trying to learn more about another person. When we're trying to connect with another person. The big part of the module that this lesson today falls into is most students don't need help with informational conversations. We do have a lesson that teaches students how to ask for help, who to ask, when to ask, how to ask... that may be more informational, including things like asking where something is in a store. That's definitely more informational. But everything else that we talk about in this module is about conversations, and some students really struggle with social conversations. They may be magnificent at informational conversations. They can talk for 15 minutes about a topic they know a lot about, or they know how to ask people for things, asking what's for dinner, asking where you're going, asking about the schedule that day. It's a very different skillset than a social conversation.

Number two on the checklist: Doesn't know how to join conversations that are already happening. That's exactly what we're going to jump into today.

Number three: Attempts to join conversations by introducing themselves or by asking, "What are you talking about?"

Number four: Talks at people instead of with them. These are the main things that we are going to talk about today, because they fall under the lesson that the random number generator chose for me to talk about today. 

I don't believe in the concept of there being a right or a wrong way/thing when it comes to social skills. I don't think anything is right or wrong. I think everything either gets us closer to the outcome we're looking for, or it doesn't. It may even get us further away. I think that about life in general. I don't think many things are as black and white, as right and wrong. Even in the book Social Skills is Canceled, there's a story about Circle watching a student, a kid, try to join a conversation, and he does what Circle thinks he should do, what Circle herself has been taught to do, and it doesn't work. It's not successful. There's also a part in the book with Triangle, where he recognizes when he's watching videos online, that kids are doing things that he was taught not to do. So in social, I don't think there's such a thing as right or wrong, but there are choices that we make that get us closer to what we're trying to do, (maybe it's closer to the reputation that we want, closer to having a connection with this person), and there's choices that we make that get us further from that.

That's how I present things to my students. There's nothing in my program that anybody has to do or not do. I'm sharing information with them, and then we get to practice. We get to try. And they each get to decide for themselves if this is something that they want to try to do out in the world with other people. And if they decide they don't want to try it, that's completely fine. My goal is just to help them recognize: What are the strategies that tend to get us closer to what we're looking for? For my students, it's relationships, friendships. And what are the strategies that actually get us further from that? With that, let's jump into the lesson.

The lesson starts with me asking a question. I ask, "How many people does it take to make a group?" So I'll ask you that question if you're listening or watching: How many people does it take to make a group?
The answer is two. Just two. I do polls in the classes. For students who come in person, different parts of the room represent different responses. So we stand up and everybody goes to the part of the room that represents the response that they think they want to go with. For students who are on Zoom, I can do polls through Zoom so they're able to share what they think.

The answer is two. It only takes two people to make a group. For most students, this is a new concept to them. Most students do not choose the answer of 'two'. Some students even think it's not a group unless there's 100 people in it. It only takes two people to make a group.

The most relevant example of this I can give is, I talk to the students about it being them and one of their parents in the car going somewhere. Most parents and most kids can relate to this situation. One parent and one kiddo in the car going somewhere. The two of you are a group. At Starfish, I also talk about if just two people are playing a game together (we have a quite a few two player games: Connect Four is a great example of a two player game, along with Chess and Checkers), even if it's only two people playing that game, you two are a group. Once I give examples, it makes it a lot easier for my students to recognize that concept, that it just takes two people.

The reason that this is important is because, even in a group of two, there's still things that we can try and practice and learn about social conversations, even in a group of two. Even when it's just kiddo and parent in the car together, we can still practice and learn and have social conversations, as opposed to kiddo being on their device the whole time. We can still work on social conversations. That's the first part of the lesson, the concept that only takes two people to be a group.

When we talk about joining a conversation, this is a conversation that's already happening. This is the first lesson I teach in the module about conversations, because, to me, this is one of the easiest things to learn how to do. I did not put these lessons in order based on how you would approach them. I put them in order from what I consider to be the easiest to the most difficult. And joining a conversation, to me, is the easiest concept because it's already happening. Other people have already started it. They've already picked the topic. They've already kicked the conversation off. Your role is to try to join if you want to. That's another big part of the lesson: If you want to.

We talk about how there are two reasons we may be interested in joining the conversation. What tends to happen is a lot of students will consider joining a conversation based on who the people are in that conversation. I would say this mostly applies to triangles, but it also applies to squares, because squares tend to have certain people they're comfortable with, and certain people that maybe they're not as comfortable with. Circles tend to be comfortable with pretty much anybody, so it's not as big of a challenge for them. Triangles and squares tend to consider joining a conversation based on who the people are that are having that conversation. It's actually a backwards way to approach joining a conversation, because those people could be talking about something that you do not care about. And so what I teach students is: what we actually want to try to do is join a conversation based on what the people having that conversation are talking about. This goes back to the example in the book with Circle watching a student try to join a conversation. That was one of the things that got in his way; he didn't know what they were talking about before he tried to join. He just tried to join without knowing what it was that they were talking about.

One of the reasons we try to join a conversation is because we're interested in what the people are talking about Even if it's something we don't know about, it may just pique our interest. It may just appeal to our curiosity. 'Oh, I would like to hear more about that. I would like to learn more about that.'

Another reason is that we know something about what people are talking about. We want to contribute and add to the conversation. We want to participate in the conversation because we have things to say about it.

Those are typically the two reasons why we would choose to join a conversation. Again, it's not based on who the people are, it's based on what the topic is. Which means we have to know what the topic is before we try to join. That's probably the biggest struggle that I see with students is trying to join a conversation without knowing what the topic is, and that's where things tend to fall apart. If they're going to fall apart, that's probably the biggest reason why. And this isn't just about students at Starfish Social Club. This is about anybody trying to join a conversation. If you try to join a conversation without knowing what it's about, it creates an awkward, uncomfortable experience for the rest of the people in the conversation.

In the lesson, I talk about how there may be times where there are groups talking about things that you just don't care about. We go around the group, and every student gets to share something they just don't care about. And the point is to show that we don't want to join just any conversation, because it could be a conversation about something we don't care about. My example is always Star Wars. I just don't care about Star Wars. I've never watched the movies. It's just not a thing I care about. Ironically, my birthday is on May 4, but I just don't care. So I would not attempt to join a conversation if people were talking about Star Wars, even if it was people that I really liked and cared about, because I don't want to be part of that conversation. So having all the students come up with examples of things they also don't care to talk about helps reinforce that concept, that we don't have to try to join a conversation if we don't care about the topic.

We then talk about some things we want to avoid when we're joining a group conversation. I don't typically like to draw attention to the things that we want to avoid, but everything I teach is based off of what I have noticed about the students I work with. So if I bring something up, it's because I have students who are doing it or not doing it, and so my goal is to shine some light on it for them.

One of the big challenges for triangle students is that they will try to join a conversation, and then very quickly they will try to make the conversation about them. They may be successful in joining, they may have the skills and strategies to get in the conversation, but then they have a tendency of making it about them. Maybe they talk for too long. Maybe they overshare. Maybe they just kind of shift the focus. Sometimes they'll even try to change the topic, even though they weren't part of choosing the topic. Sometimes they'll join a conversation and give other people feedback. Circle students sometimes will join a conversation and give other people feedback as well. Like, "Oh, you know we're not supposed to be talking about that." So this is one of the things I bring up that we want to avoid. We do not want to try to join a conversation and then make it about us. Again, you can do that if you want to, it's just not going to work out very well for you. We don't want to talk over the people in the group, we don't want to talk more than everybody else is talking.

When we join, we want to join by saying something short, brief, quick. We don't want to jump in and tell a whole story. There's even a couple scenarios in the book where I share that students are joining conversations and kind of going on and on and on, and it gets a little bit overwhelming to the other person in those conversations. When we join, we are a guest in that conversation. We just want to say something to the point.

Going along with that, we don't want to change the topic of the conversation. We are a guest in this conversation. If we don't want to talk about what they're talking about, we shouldn't join that conversation. So we don't get to join a conversation about movies and change it to video games. If the group that was already having that conversation changes the topic, we absolutely go right along with it. But as a guest in the conversation, we want to avoid changing the topic. It is not our conversation to come in and try to change the topic.

One common piece of advice that well-meaning adults sometimes give kids (I would say especially circle kids, for some reason), is they'll say something like, "If you want to talk to those kids, if you want to join that conversation, just go up and introduce yourself." And I've witnessed students do this at Starfish and just out in the world. I've had kids out in the world just come up to me and be like, "Hey, I'm so and so," and I'm always taken aback by that. Number one, I do teach my students that we probably don't tell strangers our names. We can talk to anybody we want to. We can say hello to anybody. We probably don't need to tell them our name. But also, it's such an awkward way to try to engage with somebody.

Even as an adult, the only time I can think of that that might not be so awkward is at a networking event. But even then, ideally, that's not how we engage with other people. I don't attend a lot of networking events, but I am on LinkedIn, and I can't imagine sending somebody a message and just saying, "Hey, I'm Steph!" Yeah, I don't know where to go with that!

When kids do that, it's not naturally how people join a conversation. Even on the playground, if you think about kids wanting to play together on the playground, they don't introduce themselves on the playground. Usually in that kind of situation, they don't ever introduce themselves. And so it's the same with a conversation. We do not want to try to join a conversation by introducing ourselves. It's awkward. It's not natural. And it's not likely to make the group really want us to be part of that conversation. It also stops the conversation, because it's not at all related to what the group is talking about, and so it stops the conversation. I do not ever teach or reinforce anybody starting a conversation by introducing themselves.

Now we're going to talk about what we are going to do. Just a reminder, everything I teach my students is optional. I am sharing information. I'm sharing strategies. I'm sharing what I know is more likely to get my students the outcome that they want, but it's entirely up to them if they choose to implement it or not.

Because I teach my students that we need to know what a conversation is about before we try to join, I teach them how to listen without being awkward about it, without spying on the group. So we use a distraction. I encourage the students to think about something they would normally have with them or on them. For a lot of students, especially middle school, high school, it's their phone. Most secondary students have a phone. It could be a watch. Some of my students don't have their own phone, but they have their own smart watch that they can send and get messages on. So it could be a watch. Mostly we're talking about school since that's where the most opportunities for social interaction are, so it could be a backpack. It could be a pen. If a student has a fidget that they tend to always have with them, it could be a fidget. If they typically wear the same hoodie or jacket, it could be the drawstrings on the hoodie. It can be anything that they would normally have with them.

The intention of the distraction is, we're going to pretend that we're paying attention to what we have chosen as our distraction while we are listening to the conversation. This means that we have to stand close enough to hear the group, but not so close that it's weird. Another tip is to turn your body at an angle away from the group. If we're standing behind somebody with our body facing them, that's usually pretty uncomfortable. But if we stand at an angle, we could just be hanging out there. So again, we're going to stand with our body facing away.

We're going to pretend that we're distracted by whatever we have with us, and we're going to listen and we're going to figure out what this group is talking about. And once we figured it out, we have a decision to make. Do you want to join this conversation, or do you not want to join this conversation. You get to make the decision. It's totally up to you. You may decide that it's not something you care about, it's not something that you're interested in, or you may decide, 'I absolutely want to join this conversation.'

A lot of my students have interests that are a couple years younger than other students their age. Because of this, there may not be a lot of conversations that are happening in their classroom, on the playground, in the cafeteria, during passing periods at the end of class, that they really care about joining. Also, some of my students, I would say especially circle and square students, tend to think that the topics that their peers care about are silly, are immature, are things that they don't really care about. Examples may be: celebrity gossip, Tiktok, memes. There are just a lot of things that typical kids, preteens, teens, talk about that a lot of neurodivergent students don't care about and don't want to be in a conversation about. Even sometimes, some of my girl students will say clothes and makeup, like "I just don't care about clothes and makeup." And I say this as I'm sitting here with no makeup on. There's just things that people our age might talk about that we just don't care about.

So that's what this is. This is our opportunity to decide: Do we want to join the conversation that we can hear, or do we not? If we decide that we do want to join the conversation, we are going to put our distraction down. And then I'm going to teach you guys a really, really important concept. This is another poll, so I'll present it to those of you listening and watching and reading as another poll. When joining a conversation, should we start by making a comment or asking a question?

In the book, the example I was talking about, the scenario where Circle was watching a boy try to join a conversation, he went up and said, "Hey, what are you guys talking about?" This is probably even more common advice than 'Go up and introduce yourself,' is 'Hey, go ask them what they're talking about.' That's probably even more common.

Here's what happens in a conversation when someone does that (and I tried to illustrate this in the book): Number one, you have disrupted the conversation. Now at least one person has to stop engaging in the conversation to answer your question. So number one, you've disrupted the conversation by asking that question. Number two, they have to answer your question, even though ideally you should already know the answer, because you should have been listening. If it was me and I said, "Hey, what are you guys talking about?" And they said, "Oh, we're talking about Star Wars." Now I'm out. I'm going to leave. So I just wasted their time, wasted my own time, disrupted the group, probably didn't create the best reputation for myself. All of that could have been avoided. It all could have been avoided. I teach my students to make a comment instead of asking a question. Make a comment, because making comment does not disrupt the conversation. As long as it's related to what they're talking about, it does not disrupt the conversation. Nobody has to stop to address what you've said. Nobody has to answer anything that you've asked, because you haven't asked anything. Just make a comment about what the group is talking about.

We want to be careful about not making it all about us. You can even make a comment about what someone just said to try to take the focus off of you. So for example, if the group is talking about movies that they've seen recently, and someone says, "Oh, I just saw the latest Disney movie," you can say something like, "Oh, I can't wait to see that one." Or "I've heard that one's really good." So you're adding on to what this other person just said. You're not saying, "Oh yeah, I saw that one too," and then going off on a story about you. You're relating to what this other person just said. That's the main strategy: we're going to join the conversation by making a comment instead of asking a question.

One of the things that I support the students with understanding as well (this is also in the book), is that social conversations are dynamic, which means the topic can change at any time. It's usually always related, but it can be constantly changing from video games to movies to TV shows to characters... It can just constantly be changing. Also multiple people can talk at the same time. That tends to be hard for circle students to kind of wrap their heads around because they like predictability and consistency and order, and it can be hard for them to process multiple people talking at the same time. Triangle students also tend to learn things by the 'rules', and so they sometimes have a hard time. Triangle students have been taught not to interrupt, because triangle students are the most likely to interrupt others. It has been drilled into their heads how disrespectful it is to interrupt. But in a social conversation, typically we're not interrupting. Typically, it's multiple people that just think of something to say at the same time. They're not intentionally talking over anybody else.

Also, you can have side conversations. If you have a group of five people, two people may be talking to each other, and another two people may be talking to each other, and the fifth one may just be kind of bouncing in between. And then the dynamic can totally shift, and it can shift again. This is what makes social conversations so much more challenging than informational conversations. Informational conversations tend to be one person talking at a time, and nobody else talks until that one person is done. And it's all about the same topic.

Social conversation is a free-for-all. It really is. It's a free-for-all. The more people that are involved, the harder it is for our students to engage and keep up. Circle students will often kind of get bowled over in social conversations, especially if there's multiple people in that conversation, it's easy for them to get bowled over. Square students often get very overwhelmed, because it's a lot to keep up with. When they finally kind of work up the courage to say something, maybe the topic has changed. It's a lot. Triangle students tend to do well with, kind of all the back and forth and all the people, once they are okay with the fact that that's how social conversation works.

I emphasize with my students that, sometimes we may try to join a conversation, and it's just not going to be successful. It's just not going to work. Sometimes it may be because we said or did something that made it kind of awkward, like all the things that we've talked about already. Sometimes it has nothing to do with us. A couple years ago at in a class I was taking at my gym, we were waiting to start the class and a couple women in front of me were talking about going on a trip to Australia. I was days away from going on a trip to Australia, and so I jumped into the conversation and just shared, "Oh, I'm actually leaving next week." And they acknowledged me. They acknowledged what I said. But I could tell that this was a conversation that was just between the two of them. They were not at all rude or disrespectful to me. They acknowledged my presence, they acknowledged what I said, but then they kind of turned their bodies back to each other and kept talking between each other. It's a great clue to pick up on. I didn't do anything socially awkward or inappropriate. It just wasn't a conversation that was open to other people joining.

Sometimes conversations are intended to be just between the people who are having them. In the book, the example of the boy trying to join the conversation that Circle's watching, the kids having the conversation all go to the same school, and they're talking about their principal. The boy that's trying to join doesn't know if he goes to the same school as them or not. But again, that's not the time to try to figure it out, because now he's disrupted their conversation. So for someone who doesn't go to their school, that wouldn't be a great conversation to try to join. Again, that's why we listen ahead of time. That's why we try to figure out what they're talking about.

Sometimes it's a conversation just between those people. Sometimes the topic is something that's not really open to other people. And I even teach my students that sometimes this is the case when parents are talking, or teachers are talking in the hallway. Sometimes they're just having a conversation between the two of them. While it might be happening in front of you, it's not really open for you to join. It's just a conversation between the two of them. It is helpful to try to develop our awareness around that, that sometimes it's just not a conversation for us, and that's okay. It's always okay to try, and have something not work out. That's okay. And just because it didn't work out, doesn't mean we did something wrong. We can assess. "Did I listen first? Did I join with a comments out of a question?" And if you did everything that that you think should have worked out and it didn't, you can just move on. It just doesn't always work out.

Toward the end of the lesson, we talk about some clues that show us that we were accepted into the conversation, and some clues that show us that we weren't accepted into the conversation. Those are really helpful because some students have a really good sense of that (square kids tend to be hyper aware of social clues, and triangle students less so, and circle students often don't even realize that social clues exist). So that's a really helpful conversation to just pay attention to.

We role play. Everybody in the group gets to practice joining a conversation. Everybody gets to role play what that looks like. If we have time, one of the cool activities that we do with this lesson is everybody in the group gets to think of a topic. Then we go around and we pretend that we're having a conversation about that topic. Let's pretend that there's a group having a conversation about this topic. What's a comment that you could make? For some students, this is such a new concept to them that they don't know. So for example, mine is always pets. We're talking about pets. What's a comment that you could make? Even if you don't have a pet, you could say that, right? It doesn't mean you can't join the conversation. You could say, "I don't have any pets." Or you could say something like, "That's cool that you have a new puppy." Again, it doesn't have to be about you. If there's time, we practice every student coming up with a topic, and then everybody thinking of a comment they could make about that topic.

That is our lesson about joining a conversation. It's a lot to think about, but that's why we practice and that's why we have conversations about it and discussions about it, because it is a lot to think about. My goal is to help my students recognize the logic in the things that we talk about. Circle students tend to need information. They are doing the best they can with what they know, and they do really well when they have new information. They're like social sponges, so everything we talk about in this lesson, they're like, "Oh, okay!" I love that light bulb of awareness and realization.

Triangle students tend to need evidence to debunk what they believe or what they've been doing. Sometimes triangle students will try to join a conversation by being really over the top. They'll kind of go jump on somebody in the group. Sometimes they will say something really out of place. I even have triangle students that will do that when we start role playing, because that's what they're comfortable doing, and doing something different is uncomfortable. So even when we role play, sometimes I'll have triangle students that will say something goofy or silly or off the wall, but they get to experience that nobody in the group thinks it's funny. Nobody in the group responds to it, and it does not open the door to them joining the conversation. So they pretty quickly typically stop doing that. But that's what a lot of triangle students do, so triangle students benefit from having their ideas and their choices debunked with reality. Triangle students tend to do really well with irrefutable evidence, if you will.

And square students tend to do well with experience and practice. Square students, if you were to give them a quiz of social skills, they would probably do really well on it. Square students know the information, but they need to see it in action. They need to see other people trying. They need to know that they're not the only one struggling with this, and they need to be able to try in an emotionally safe environment. In the general public (school, karate class, wherever) is not an emotionally safe environment in their mind. A place like Starfish Social Club is an emotionally safe environment, because we're all here for the same reason. We're all in this together. We're all on this journey together. And they can also see that other students struggle with either the same things or different things. It gives them more comfort and more ease when it comes to trying and practicing.

You can see how the information I share with my students is the same for everybody. We all go through the same lesson, but each social type takes something different out of it and needs something different from it. They also benefit from bouncing off of each other. The circle kids benefit from seeing triangle kids and square kids using the skills and the strategies. The triangle kids benefit from seeing circle kids and square kids doing things that don't cause other kids to think they're annoying. They're not trying to be silly, they're not trying to get attention. And square kids benefit from seeing circle kids and triangle kids trying and practicing and being involved. So we're all learning the same things. We're just learning it for different reasons and in different ways, and it just all comes together beautifully. That's the lesson about joining a conversation.

Let me go to our random number generator and see what we're going to talk about next time. It says 29, which is module four, lesson five. Module Four is all about all the different kinds of relationships. Lesson five in module four is friendships. That's a cool one to talk about next. So that's what we'll talk about next week, is how I teach the concept of friendships, and how each one of the shapes, each one of the social profiles, struggles in different ways with the concept of friendship, and how I support and teach and accommodate that for each one of them.

Thank you for being here. I'm really glad that you're here, and I'll see you again next time!