Hey guys. This is such a hard time for us, for our kids, for everyone. Can you imagine being a kid right now? I, as a grown adult who is fairly reasonable and logical, cannot reason through some of the happenings in today’s world. Certainly kids are unable to! While they likely don’t worry about things like going to the store to find empty shelves or wondering what will happen to the economy, their anxieties are real! And they probably have a hard time understanding any of this and then expressing it. I recently wrote about ways to support kids that need extra attention. The post contains a lot of ideas that could help in our current pandemic situation, but is general overall. It sparked me to search for and share a few Coronavirus-specific resources. You’ll find them below. I’ve realized that we don’t have the words to explain to our kids what is going on. This makes it incredibly hard to support them during this time. Hopefully these will help.
Social Stories
This social story* was created by me. It is simple. You can insert actual pictures of the child you are thinking of and have him write in his name and some information on the first page. You can include pictures or drawings of his family members, toys, school, or friends. Having the child be the “character” and be involved in creating the story can be helpful in their interest and it makes it personal to them.
*a Social Story follows 10 criteria, developed by Carol Gray. Mine does not. Therefore this particular one falls into a “social narrative” category. It acts more as a script than the technical definition of a Social Story, which you can find here.
These stories are written by Carol Gray, the creator of social stories:
–I Can Help! — could be used for kids ages 4-7
–My Story About Pandemics and The Coronavirus–seems to be appropriate for older children ages 6-9
Visual Schedules
This website is likely familiar to some of you. Autism Speaks has many resources for families with children on the autism spectrum. This resource provides social stories for specific pandemic-related difficulties and also printables to use to create your own visual schedule at home. It is modify-able, editable, printable which is pretty cool. The child you are thinking of does not need to have an autism diagnosis to benefit from these tools.
Ideas for Routines
This is a lovely resource that provides reminders of daily routines to stick to. It also gives scripts to say to your child to further engage them. I think it is a nice reminder to all of us to talk through the routines of your day with your children.
I definitely wish I had these resources 4 weeks ago to share with everyone. But, this could be an issue that continues to pop up in certain areas for some time going forward. I hope you find it useful. Please, share any ideas or resources that you have come across to help your kids get through this time!
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