Amy’s Social Skills

Amy is an unpopular girl in my class. She seems to be very defensive and she always puts the blame on others. During the lesson, she had an argument with a boy and they were shouting at each other. I told Amy firmly to ignore the boy, but Amy replied, “I did nothing wrong. If he had not provoked me, I won’t be this mad!” I asked her to stay behind and tell me what has happened. During our conversation, she suddenly told me that her parents were planning to get divorced soon.

Perhaps one of the reasons behind her defensiveness is family influences. She may not receive adequate parental scaffolding at home, which leads to loneliness and not willing to disclose her true feelings easily. When she overhears her parents’ arguments, she may just copy their negative tone.

As I only teach in this school for 6 weeks, there is little I can do to help her deal with her family issues. Still, I can assign her roles during lessons so as to avoid outbreak of arguments, e.g. jot down the names and number of times her peers provoked her and tell me what happened after lesson.