Social stories

[KarenT]

Hi, I'm looking for a Social Stories guru to give a bit of advice. Hope we have a 'resident expert' who can help me out.

 

I want to do a story for J to tackle his lashing out at people when under stress, particularly kicking and hitting over the head.

 

I've done a course on Social Stories and read quite a bit about them, but they always seem to focus on emphasising the positive behaviour you want to encourage and keeping everything as positive as possible generally. I find this quite hard when there's something specific I want to discourage. I've tried the 'pro' approach and it hasn't had much effect. I feel I need to find a way of writing the story that actually mentions 'no kicking' but in a way that manages to stay positive.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Karen

x

[smiley]

Karen - i had several along that theme that i'd written for M - i'll try to dig some out. I know the focus was very much on 'staying calm', but i remember several did mention specific things i.e; hitting.

 

These may help....

 

http://www.frsd.k12.nj.us/autistic/Social%...ial_stories.htm

 

http://www.tinsnips.org/

 

http://www.polyxo.com/socialstories/

 

http://www.autism.org/stories.html

 

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/m...rt/examples.htm

[oxgirl]

Hi, I'm looking for a Social Stories guru to give a bit of advice. Hope we have a 'resident expert' who can help me out.

 

I want to do a story for J to tackle his lashing out at people when under stress, particularly kicking and hitting over the head.

 

I've done a course on Social Stories and read quite a bit about them, but they always seem to focus on emphasising the positive behaviour you want to encourage and keeping everything as positive as possible generally. I find this quite hard when there's something specific I want to discourage. I've tried the 'pro' approach and it hasn't had much effect. I feel I need to find a way of writing the story that actually mentions 'no kicking' but in a way that manages to stay positive.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Karen

x

 

 

Hi Karen, is there something specific you want him to understand about the hurting or is it that you want to tell him that when he's cross he must do something alternative, how do you want to go with it? As an example, how about something like this:

 

 

Everybody gets cross sometimes.

I get cross sometimes too.

When I get cross I am not allowed to kick or hit anyone.

If I hit or kick people, it might hurt them and they will be sad.

When I get cross I could punch my pillow or squeeze my teddy (or whatever) instead.

If I do that instead of kicking and hitting then I will feel better and nobody will be hurt.

 

 

Take care.

~ Mel ~

[KarenT]

Thanks, some great ideas there. Particularly like the I Am Angry story.

 

I also find it hard to keep them brief, tend to try and incorporate too much into them. I guess the situations are never totally clear-cut. Eg, J also hits and kicks people because, having watched and been involved in rough play among other children, he seems to think it's an appropriate part of play as other children do it. Except he doesn't understand the boundaries of when it's OK and when it's not. So I've been trying to do an all-encompassing, 'no kicking/hitting under any circumstances' story which possibly isn't the right approach. Maybe I need two stories, one for lashing out in anger and another for generally being kind/unkind to other people.

 

Thanks. You've given me something to work on. Will keep plodding away!

 

Karen

x

[KarenT]

Here's a little update...

 

J came out of school calmer than I've seen him in God knows how long. Really peaceful evening, he phoned his one and only friend and asked if she'd like to come and see the Chuckle Brothers at the theatre (the things we do for our kids, eh?!), really successful. After tea I mentioned that I had a new social story for us to look at later, he was fine even when I told him what it was about. Then as we went upstairs to bed (we always do our 'strategy stuff' at bedtime, when he's at his most relaxed and responsive) he started getting very agitated at the prospect of it. When I started reading it he went barmy.

 

I'd actually split it into two - one about When I Get Angry (thanks for the link, Smiley) and one I put together myself about hitting and kicking and hurting people in general. I'd also drawn some stick figures with different captions to show people's thoughts and responses to being kicked. He handled the Angry one but not the kicking - too close to home right now as he's doing it a lot at school. Hid under the bed and wouldn't come out for ages. Wanted to look at the pictures but I knew that was a bad idea as they were meant to be the 'next step' from the story, they'd only have wound him up further. Eventually I put the stories away, said we'd look at it another time and read a book to him instead, which helped him to calm down again.

 

I've spoken to him again this morning, told him I understand how hard it is for him to think about the fact that he kicks people, but reminded him how well he's done with learning to recognise and control anger and that I will help him to make the same success with working on the kicking. He still doesn't want to hear it, but I expect he'll come round if I drip, drip, drip over the next couple of weeks. I guess I need to desensitise him to be able to accept talking about it before he's able to cooperate, but we'll get there.

 

Thanks to Smiley for the PM - haven't had a chance to reply yet but much of what you suggested I incorporated into my story. Really appreciate your taking the time.

 

Karen

x

[CarerQuie]

I have heard that you should really only try and introduce one social story at a time.xx

[KarenT]

I have heard that you should really only try and introduce one social story at a time.xx

I agree, I've heard that too. In this case it was a choice between one long, complicated story or a very short and basic one on anger (to supplement the larger scale work we've been doing on that recently, and made good progress) plus something more specific about the kicking/hitting.

 

TBH I don't think it would have mattered if I'd had one story or fifteen - his anxiety had risen by the time we reached the top of the stairs because he doesn't like to be reminded of his social failings. When we've done anger work recently he's been really keen, eager to do page after page, but on this particular subject he seems to be a touch more sensitive so I'll have to handle it accordingly.

 

Thanks all.

 

Karen

x

[allsetuk]

oh thank god, i didnt realise they didnt like to be reminded of social failings and ive tried at length to talk to my son about his agression towards me, but he says no no no i dont want to hear bad stuff , or goes and hides crys and beats him self up mentally that he has been horrible to me........ he went to a party at xmas where all the children were being very aggressive and rough..ever since he as been a changed boy channeling constant rough play towards me at all times,all day..... if i use what he considers to be the wrong tone , or say something that he thinks isnt nice even though its totally normal he over reacts and hits me , scratches me , attacks me....ive NO clue how to handle it...