This post includes fun bonuses!
Let's Get Moving
As a military wife, full-time remote employee with Right At School, and mother to an 11-year old boy, Connor, who was diagnosed with ADHD, childhood depression and Autistic Spectrum Disorder four years ago, we are facing some new challenges now that we’re all home every day.
Connor is a brilliant, inquisitive child and he wants to watch the news and be informed of everything that is going on. He’s an only child and his sole companionship during the day is me. We’re definitely learning a lot and trying to incorporate skills that will help in the long-run as well.
Let’s face it — it has only been a couple of weeks and the patience is already running low and emotions are running high. Connor has a hard time reading other people’s emotions as well as expressing his own. So this morning as I was trying to explain the importance of capitalization in writing his paper — with only 5 minutes left to my scheduled tele-conference meeting — frustrations were running high and voices were getting loud. After I walked away to go to my meeting, the guilt had set in.
The thing is, Connor didn’t even notice how frustrated I was. That’s when I thought we could make this into a teachable moment of understanding social cues that are going on around him. I found this great printable to-do to help him identify emotions that are being shown — and bonus — it has superheroes!
He did the activity on his own, and then we sat down together and talked about the choices he made on where to place the superheroes. I am definitely not the next Wonder Woman — but am happy that we made the time to address the situation. He can work to understand the social cues around him — and I can work on keeping my cool when my anxieties are high.
Whether you have kids with special needs like Connor or not, I hope you find this activity useful when we’re all feeling just a bit more emotional than normal.
