Johnny and I had a wonderful project to keep us busy yesterday. It started the night before, after he went to sleep, when I collected all of the things needed and printed/cut out the following template: "Don't Be An Angry Bird Book". I was so excited when I found this nice little social story, as Angry Birds are Johnny's favorite thing in the whole world and have remained his primary obsession for the past 2 years. What could be better than finding a social story that is relevant to his interests? All of the stick figure and horrible cartoon character social stories seem to not hold his attention when we have worked with them, but Angry Birds?! Emotional regulation is the #1 goal for Johnny right now, so learning ways to calm down when he is angry has been a huge focus in our house.
After gluing the template cut-outs to colorful construction paper, I worked with Johnny as he colored in the pictures and brainstormed answers to the questions at the bottom of each page:
What words can I say when I am angry?
What can I do with my face when I am angry?
What should I do with my body when I get angry?
What should I do with objects when I am angry?
Why does deep breathing calm us down?
Where can I go when I get angry?
How does being an angry bird hurt myself and others?
Who are some people that can help me calm down when I am angry?
How should I treat other people when I am angry?
Why wouldn't we want to spread our anger to other people?
What makes me angry?
Where can I redirect my anger?
How can I forgive someone who has made me angry?
He came up with his own answers to each one and then wrote them in all by himself. It was a somewhat tedious process as he is still working on spelling based off of what I write down on a separate piece of paper for reference. As he was coloring and writing, I was laminating the pages of our book. We worked in tandem for most of the morning, and by the time he was ready to get on the bus, we had done all but bind the book. When he got home, we cut 3 holes down the sides of each page, then connected them all together with binder rings. He couldn't be more proud of himself! We took it with us to GG and Pap Pap's house so that he could read it with them, and he is taking it to school with him today.
Having Johnny be a part of the process of making the book not only by coloring in the pages, but also through helping write part of the story, was in my opinion the most important part of our exercise. The work was twofold: he both was forced to truly ponder and focus on ways to calm his body, and he was also personalizing the book to match his own understanding and preferences for cooling down. I could tell it was important to him by the way that he stuck with the project for so long. He was determined to make it the "best book ever!" and finish as much of it as he could before school.
True to form, I had to explain that while the book was talking about angry birds, it was actually referring to him. When it had phrases such as "cool down" it actually meant calm down, not finding a way to lower his body temperature. For a while there, he was convinced that the best way to cool was to go swimming... I love how my boy's mind works!
.JPG)
After gluing the template cut-outs to colorful construction paper, I worked with Johnny as he colored in the pictures and brainstormed answers to the questions at the bottom of each page:
What words can I say when I am angry?
What can I do with my face when I am angry?
What should I do with my body when I get angry?
What should I do with objects when I am angry?
Why does deep breathing calm us down?
Where can I go when I get angry?
How does being an angry bird hurt myself and others?
Who are some people that can help me calm down when I am angry?
How should I treat other people when I am angry?
Why wouldn't we want to spread our anger to other people?
What makes me angry?
Where can I redirect my anger?
How can I forgive someone who has made me angry?
He came up with his own answers to each one and then wrote them in all by himself. It was a somewhat tedious process as he is still working on spelling based off of what I write down on a separate piece of paper for reference. As he was coloring and writing, I was laminating the pages of our book. We worked in tandem for most of the morning, and by the time he was ready to get on the bus, we had done all but bind the book. When he got home, we cut 3 holes down the sides of each page, then connected them all together with binder rings. He couldn't be more proud of himself! We took it with us to GG and Pap Pap's house so that he could read it with them, and he is taking it to school with him today.
Having Johnny be a part of the process of making the book not only by coloring in the pages, but also through helping write part of the story, was in my opinion the most important part of our exercise. The work was twofold: he both was forced to truly ponder and focus on ways to calm his body, and he was also personalizing the book to match his own understanding and preferences for cooling down. I could tell it was important to him by the way that he stuck with the project for so long. He was determined to make it the "best book ever!" and finish as much of it as he could before school.
True to form, I had to explain that while the book was talking about angry birds, it was actually referring to him. When it had phrases such as "cool down" it actually meant calm down, not finding a way to lower his body temperature. For a while there, he was convinced that the best way to cool was to go swimming... I love how my boy's mind works!
.JPG)
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