Topic Appropriateness & Oversharing

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Do you teach the skills of topic appropriateness and oversharing to your students with social communication differences? Do you have students that don’t know what information to share with others? Do they have a good understanding of what things you can say to friends versus family versus strangers? Topic appropriateness and oversharing are two important social communication skills to cover with your older students, especially if they use social media. When you help students understand oversharing, they can become better digital citizens too! Looking to help your students with their cybersecurity skills? This cybersafety product is for you!

Teaching Sequence: Topic Appropriateness

Here is the general sequence I use to teach students with social communication difficulties about topic appropriateness.

Circle of Communication Partners

An anchor visual for teaching both topic appropriateness and oversharing is the circle of communication partners, similar to the circle of friends or circle of supports used to teach autistic individuals about various social supports. The closer people are to you in the circle, the more personal types of information you can usually share with them. As people in each part of the circle get further away, the less personal things we typically share with them.

Topic Appropriateness or Oversharing? Which one should I teach first?

I prefer to teach topic appropriateness first, then oversharing. The vocabulary is similar and the content definitely overlaps. An important aspect of topic appropriateness to teach is the definition of an acquaintance and what types of information can be shared with them. If it is too much content to teach your student about ALL the groups in the circle of communication partners, make sure you teach them about “acquaintances” and “strangers.”

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In my topic appropriateness packet, I start out by differentiating the concepts of “friend” from “acquaintance” and “family.” Then, I move on to “teachers,” “community helpers” and “strangers.” I prefer to separate teachers from community helpers because our learners are typically students, and the information they share with a teacher is quite different from other community helpers, such as a dentist.

Be sure to cover the concept of the “right time and place,” as this is important in both topic appropriateness and oversharing. For example, it is more socially acceptable to use profanity around friends than teachers or classmates. That is the “right” time. The right place for profanity would be during an informal gathering, not in the classroom.

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Products for Teaching Topic Appropriateness:

I have both print and no print options for teaching students about topic appropriateness.

Check out the links below!

Topic Appropriateness: Boom Cards Only

Topic Appropriateness: PDF and EASEL

Types of Oversharing

Oversharing is when we share too much personal or private information about ourselves to people who might not be interested. An example would be a teenager talking about her boyfriend problems to her new adult neighbors. Another kind of oversharing is when we share too many details about something, rather than just summarizing it or choosing a highlight of an event to share. An example would be: if someone asks you about your weekend, and you tell them everything you did all weekend, instead of one special thing, or a summary. So, one can overshare by sharing the wrong type of information with someone OR sharing a large amount of details. Oversharing occurs in conversations, digital communications, and is common on social media.

Oversharing: how do we teach it?

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Where can Oversharing be found?

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Oversharing comes with risks, particularly on social media. Sharing certain types of information can harm your reputation, lead to identify theft, and ruin your chances of employment. Oversharing often depends on WHO we are talking to at the time. For example, it may be okay to talk about back acne to your doctor but it would be oversharing to talk to your classmate about it.

Other Teaching Tips:

Trust plays an important part in both topic appropriateness and oversharing. I find it helpful to cover that we share private information with people we trust. What does trust feel like? What it’s not! Can you trust everyone on social media? What trust looks and feels like to students!
People can change from acquaintance to friend if you spend more time with them and trust them. It takes time and shared experiences for people to trust eachother. The categories of “acquaintance” and “friend” are not static.