Unit 1: Social Skills
Lesson 4: Friends
Topic 1: Understanding Relationships
OBJECTIVES
Identify the difference between a stranger, acquaintance, and friend.
Identify the difference in how you behave around strangers, acquaintances, and friends.
MATERIALS NEEDED
How to Behave Around Strangers, Acquaintances, and
Friends
SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES
Social Skills Development: Practical Strategies for Adolescents and Adults
with Developmental Disabilities – a book by Stephen Antonello. It
can be purchased from Any Psych
Book (1800 210-7323) for $47.95. Check local book stores as well.
INSTRUCTIONAL FORMAT
This topic will involve discussion of different relationships people have.
Before a person can work on making friends, it is important to understand
the difference between the various relationships we have. How we act around
a stranger (a person we do not know) and an acquaintance (we may or may not
know his name, but we have spoken to him and have seen him on a regular basis)
is going to be different from how we act around a friend (a person we do
things with, trust, and feel close to). Trainers can also discuss other
relationships we have with family members and spouses or girlfriends/boyfriends.
Discuss the different relationships we have with people around us. Talk about
strangers, acquaintances, friends, and other people who are close to us (family,
spouses, etc.). To test the student's understanding of the concept, ask about
different people they might run into on a daily basis. For example:
At work there is a woman who you see a few times a week. You don't remember
her name, but you talk about football and the weather. Is she a stranger,
acquaintance, or friend? Acquaintance.
You are standing in line at the store. You have never seen the person in
front of you, but she starts talking to you. Is she a stranger, acquaintance,
or friend? Stranger.
George, a man you have known at church for five years, is in the hospital.
You go out to lunch with him once a month after church, go to the movies
or some other activity a few times a year, and you feel that you can tell
him personal things about your life. You want to visit him. Is he a stranger,
acquaintance, or friend? Friend.
Discuss the appropriate behavior around different people. This topic is
especially important for people who have intellectual disabilities. Moreover,
focus on how you would behave around people at work versus outside of work.
For example, because you want to be able to get along with the people you
work with, you may want to get to know some strangers at work. You are probably
not going to try to get to know strangers in a store. Another example is
that you may hug friends when you see them outside of work, but you probably
should not hug that person except for certain circumstances when you are
at work. Cover the points from the handout titled "How
to Behave Around Strangers, Acquaintances, and Friends." When discussing
strangers and acquaintances, it is important to point out that some of the
guidelines about touching and how much you talk to a person apply to situations
outside of work. For example, you never hug a stranger or acquaintance no
matter where you are. And, you do not talk much to people you do not know.
SIGNS OF GENERALIZATION
Students keep appropriate physical boundaries with people at work. They do
not hug and kiss people. They act appropriately at work around those people
who are friends (i.e., he is not hanging around that person all the time,
he is not giving the person a shoulder massage, he does not hug her every
time he sees her, etc.).
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