Learning to be a person is a lifelong task and, honestly, it can be hard. Most of us are pretty messy and complicated, so learning how to handle our own weirdness is challenging, particularly when it comes to interacting with other messy, complicated people. And as parents, it’s up to us to teach our own kids how to move through the world. TikTok creator and mom of two boys Kate (@kelsewhatelse) has come up with a fantastic strategy to help kids navigate tricky social situations. Specifically: what do you do in the face of opposing opinions?
“Let’s play the ‘I Don’t Like That’ game,” she tells one of her boys while decorating a Christmas tree. “It’s where I say something I like but you don’t like and instead of saying ‘I don’t like that,’ you ask me a question about it or talk about it. Because when we’re trying to be somebody’s friend, we make friendly conversation. And that means we don’t tell them that we do not like the things that they like; we try to get to know them by asking them questions about the things that they love.”
So for example, if someone says ‘I love broccoli,’ something Kate’s son is not fond of, he won’t say “Ew, I don’t like broccoli” he asks “What’s your favorite part?” When his mom answers (the tops), he offers a sweet “Oooh! It’s cool that you like broccoli. I like pizza.”
She also highlights that you don’t always have to ask a question: sometimes you can just make conversation. Like, if someone tells you their favorite color is pink, you can simply talk about things that are pink.
“We want to have good friendships in our life. And in order to have good friends we have to be a good friend, and that means we don’t shut down the conversation. even though we may not like the thing that they like.”
It’s all about supporting our friends’ interests!
A number of parents and teachers praised Kate’s approach, saying they’d be using this technique with their kids. But many were quick to note this is a useful exercise for adults as well.
“Not me, a whole adult, taking notes,” joked one commenter.
“I feel like a lot of grown men need this lesson,” mused a second.
“As somebody with social anxiety, this would have been helpful like 35 years ago,” wrote a third.
While the line between “keeping conversation friendly” certainly becomes more nuanced as we get older and the topics become more consequential, Kate’s simple but genius exercise is probably one a lot of us could stand to reflect on… especially as many of us head to Thanksgiving dinners.
