Many children feel anxious with situations such as doctor visits, school life, birthday parties, holidays. For neurodivergent children, those feelings can be beyond overwhelming. Social stories are a wonderful tool that can help prepare children for the event. Properly written, social stories can provide enough context about the event, what may the child experience, hear, or see, and what others will be doing. The positive tone of the social story, combined with the sense of preparedness, often results in smoother transitions and fewer stress-related behaviors.
The Use of Social Stories
Social stories are widely used across therapists offices and classrooms, often incorporated into ABA therapies. This is so because they are very effective at:
- Breaking down complex social situations into simple, understandable steps
- Reducing anxiety by helping children know what to expect
- Giving children specific words and examples to understand feelings and social rules
Professionals will often customize the social story to match specific needs, address a situation, or adapt to a learning style, and the calm, judgment-free way helps to teach and reinforce positive behaviors. But families can, and in fact, should use them too– skills learned in therapy must carry over to real life. Moreover, parents can use them to address situations that happen outside of the therapeutic office and classroom. The consistent approach to behavior and social-emotional growth can pay off in spades.
Social Stories for Common Situations Families Face
Emotions in neurodivergent kids can be big! Common social stories for emotions are:
- Understanding and expressing anger appropriately
- Coping with disappointment or frustration
- Managing anxiety about new situations
- Dealing with sadness
- Celebrating happy moments
For social interactions, errands, appointments, or community outings, social stories can be created to support:
- Keeping hands ot self
- Respecting personal spaces
- Making friends and joining play
- Taking turns and sharing
- Visiting the doctor or dentist
- Running errands, like going to the grocery store and taking out the trash
- Manners at restaurants and other public spaces
- Using public transportation
But social stories can also help navigate daily routines and transitions. For example:
- Morning routines (getting dressed, brushing teeth, eating breakfast)
- Bedtime routines and sleep challenges
- Changing classrooms or having new teachers
- Weather changes
Taking Advantage of Generative AI Technology for Creating Social Stories
Technology has become a huge part of our daily lives in the past decades. And the current wave of innovation– AI, gives great opportunities and potential to quickly deliver personalized support. With an AI-powered platform, like Emona, families and professionals can quickly provide support for emotions, feelings, and behaviors. Emona uses a purpose-built AI model to quickly generate personalized social stories with corresponding visuals. A simple chat-like interface allows for quick input of the situation, along with relevant details like age, gender, appearance, and so on. In under a minute, Emona can help make an overwhelming situation manageable.
Make Social Stories Work in Your Family
Now that you can use Emona to create personalized social stories that properly reflect your child's life, here are a few things to consider, you can make them really work for you.
- Use them consistently– not just once. Repetition matters, and you can introduce them before a challenge occurs.
- Have quick access to social stories. This saves time and helps you be consistent. Emona allows you to save, share, and print your social story, but it also gives you access to publicly shared social stories. You can use them to share that there are other kids that feel the same emotions.
- Celebrate small wins to help the association of social stories with success and confidence.
- Adjust the social stories as your child grows. Not only to match the physical change, but also the transition from one emotional level to another.
- Share the social stories with your child's support network. This way school teachers, therapists, grandparents, or babysitters can use the same familiar language and approach. Again– it is about consistency. And being consistent across environments reinforces learning.
- Lastly, enjoy them together. Take turns reading the social story, if this is possible. Point at the visuals. Discuss the story.
Ready to get started? Try Emona.ai and create your personalized social story now!