This was discussed in a recent blog by Michelle Garcia Winner. Although the entry is not pleasant to read and some parents may find it offensive - it is important to do so.

Our challenge as parents and therapists is to find the keys that help our children to grow and learn. This is not always an easy task. Even with the best of intentions it is often difficult to guide our children down the road ‘most often’ traveled. Although it’s hard to know what it feels like to be in their skin, we can see how the world looks at them and that is hard to view. Do we have the ability to control the situation? At what point are these children expected to be accountable for their actions and attitudes? How do we, the parents, need to change our actions in order to facilitate change in our children’s actions?

Here’s the link to the blog entry Working with difficult clients.

It’s the story of Johnny, a smart boy with social difficulties. Johnny figures out that he can solve his and other people’s social problems by being a social detective.

The Introduction explains the process he uses.  There are guidelines and checklists for the children to follow. Each chapter is another social mystery that Johnny solves for the kids around him. The stories involve everyday scenarios and use humor to teach perspective taking, reading non-verbal cues and how to handle teasing and bullies. Each chapter is it’s own story so you don’t have to read the book straight through. And it’s a great way to share some time with your child.

So as you cross the street and you see that the approaching car is veering toward the right you predict that the car is going to turn and you stop walking. In the morning, you look out the window and see that it looks very gray and cloudy so you take your umbrella because you figure that it might rain. These thoughts are so automatic that we may not notice that they occur. This isn’t the case for our students.

Our kids don’t take in the contextual information or use their memory and knowledge to make predictions about what might happen next. This affects their ability to understand literature and movies. It can also result in being vulnerable to being picked on because they don’t understand the motives and intentions of others and can’t predict what they might do. In class we work on using what we know about people to predict things about them.