"My First Day in New Academic Session"

April 4, 2016

Today, while going to school, my mom said that I have grown one class high, from nursery class to kindergarten class. She said I will have a new class, a new ma'am and lots of new friends. I looked at my mom carefully. Her smile was so big that even her pale teeth were visible. I started wondering what my new class would look like? How big it would be? What would be the colour of the walls? Mom mentioned about a new teacher and I wondered what went wrong with my old teacher? Did her tummy hurt so badly that she could no longer teach? Did I do something that upset her and she is no longer my teacher? My mom mentioned about new friends and I became confused.  I am still confused because how can I be friends with a bunch of people I don't know? Will they share their seat with me? Will they share lunch with me? Will they play with me? Will they laugh at me and make fun of me because I do not like to talk much?

All these thoughts added to my worry and made me cranky! When I reached school, I was still okay because my mom was with me. I held her hand tight and I did not want her to leave me in this new, strange yet familiar environment.  When I entered my new class, it was different than my old one and I was not comfortable. This made me really sad! When I met my new teacher, I recognized her. She is Ms. Avril. She helped me last year in annual day function. She talks very loud and loud noises hurt my ears. They make me more anxious. When my new teacher introduced me to the new people of my age, my mom let go of my hand and whispered “Hi” in my ears.. I remembered to say “Hi” aloud. A few of the other kids said “Hi” back, but they didn't smile. This made me more sad. I started to cry when my mom said that it was her time to leave, that it is my school time and she will pick me after the circle time. I started to cry harder. My mom said to Ms. Avril that I have ‘generalisation difficulty’ and I will take time to adjust in the new class. She gave me a flying kiss from the door and waved goodbye. I cried more. I cried and cried till the time my nosies were pouring out.

Ms. Avril gave me some toys to play with but I had no idea how to play with them so I did what I always do with stuff:  I just turned them over and over and watched the light bounce off the shiny surfaces. Then I got bored. And I remembered that I am now in a new class. This made me sad all over again because I was missing my friends, old classroom and old teacher. This time I cry louder, I howled and shouted. Ms. Avril thought that this was tantrum because I wanted a particular toy. She firmly said that she knew I was throwing a tantrum to get attention and get what I wanted and she wasn’t liking my behavior. I carefully looked at her and sobbed all the time because she just didn’t realize how badly I am missing the usual things that I used to do with my friends and old teacher. She couldn’t see my sadness. 

Emergency Social Stories

Life, as we all know it, is a huge roller coaster ride where situations are always unpredictable and unsustainable. There are days when all of us live in our routines but then there are days where there is a chaos in our lives. It could be due to a marriage, festival, earthquake, floods, fire, some urgent business trip, and any type of UNAVOIDABLE EMERGENCY.

A lot of us can easily accept the challenge, manage things and keep ourselves calm. But, for children with special needs, accepting, managing and keeping themselves calm at such times is a huge break point.

Thus, for such times we require Social Stories. And this time, Potential Therapy Centre talks about Physical Emergencies and how to prepare a child using Social Stories.

What are Social Stories?

Social Stories are visual aids that provide a sequence of instructions for the child where he is the main hero of the story and the entire storyline plot revolves around him so he understands what his own actions should be.

Social stories are situational based where the target is to cater to the difficulties of a child in various dimensions of the spectrum of life.

It helps the child in thinking skills and decisions making skills. It is a tool for anticipation and prediction of major events.

Why do we use Social Stories?

1.      Prediction/ Anticipation: What the situation might be, who all are going to be there, how might the place/ people look like, what they might be feeling about me/ thinking of me, what they may be expected of me.

2.      Skill building: what may be the way for me to respond, how can I talk, how I may really ask for help.

3.      Feel good factor: if I am able to do all of this I might just be able to be calm around these people and they may even comfort me back.

Recap of the Rules for writing the Social Story

1.      A story of your child: using words like I, Me, My, Mine, We and Name of your child. Don’t use name of another child, thinking your child will be able to relate himself/herself to the situation.

2.      Content: Narration (Refer to the post below for understanding the concept of narrations) involve what “you” are telling your child, when we are saying that social stories include the main character being your child then how may our sentences be framed?

E.g., the sentences could be framed as “When there is fire, Raghav shouts Mamma.”

3.      Language: the language that your child can use, is understood by him and repeats/ emphasizes on the key words e.g., fire, shouts, Raghav, Mamma.

Exemplary Sentence: “When there is fire, Mamma shouts Raghav”.

4.      Targeting behavior/ situation:

·        Targeting the behavior of utmost concern. E.g., we know that when Raghav is highly anxious, he jumps and flaps his hand so we can write “When Raghav sees fire he can shout for Mamma. Raghav can stand still or Raghav can walk to Mamma.”

Preparing Social Story:

A social story includes the following parts:

1.      Descriptive: This part includes the answers of all “wh” questions for your child for what he is likely to see, whom is he likely to meet, where is he going, what activities will he be doing and if others are performing, what is he expected to do.

Note: It is important to keep in mind sensory concerns for your child, narrations can be given like “there may be a lot of noise – some people may be screaming, shouting, this will be difficult for us but we can still control ourselves.”

2.      Perspective: describing what may be the feelings or thoughts of others in the given story. ‘others’ are the people who are defining the situation or the people who might be getting effected by any action of your child.

Here comes the important part of preparing the child about the EMERGENCY SITUATIONS. Potentials Therapy Centre intends to include Fire alerts, Water Flooding and Earthquake social stories. Emergencies can happen anytime and last minute experience of a situation can not only panic a child but can also leave impressions of trauma on a child’s psyche. Thus, it is important for parents to introduce such social stories anticipating the emergency and revise it in the middle of the week during free times so that god forbid, but if it happens, the child is mentally prepared about the situation.

While preparing the social story, it is important for the parent to point out the following things at the time of Emergencies:

1.      Event

2.      What is the situation like? E.g., Fire Alert

3.      How will the environment look like? E.g., fire at some place or there will be fire all around.

4.      How will the child feel? E.g., Panic, Anxiety, Fear, Afraid

5.       What will other people be doing? E.g., screaming, running, shouting

6.      How are other people feeling?

7.      Whom can the child approach for help?

8.      What should child do at this particular moment?

EXAMPLE SOCIAL STORY:

1.      When Raghav gets anxious he jumps & flaps hands.

2.      If there is emergency like fire Raghav Jumps & Flaps hands.

3.      When Raghav Jumps & Flaps hands he is more anxious.

4.      When there is emergency/Fire, Raghav can shout for mamma.

5.      When there is emergency/ Fire, Mamma also shouts for Raghav.

6.      When Raghav shouts for Mamma, Raghav can hold Mamma’s hand.

7.      Then Raghav is safe with Mamma.

This is just one of the exemplary emergency preparations to children with special needs but there are many more existing situations for which we have to prepare our kids to face them so that they do not get hampered with fears. 

For more queries or assistance/ guidance feel free to contact us at www.potentialsindia.com. You can call us at +919811798060 or +919811798930. You can even write us at contact@potentialsindia.com.