Social stories have been a huge help for our son over the years. They are something we use consistently to help him through changes that we know about ahead of time. Especially big changes!

If you’re not familiar with social stories, I can tell you a little bit about them and how we use them. They are short stories (with pictures) that are put together by parents, schools, behaviorist specialists, therapists, etc. They are usually put together with input from the parents on what the change is and how things will be different.

We have used them for holidays (because those days are so different and busy.) We use one for our family vacation, potty training, school, new therapists, summer camp, dentist, hospital stays, and more.

The idea is to prepare your child for the change and for them to become familiar with what is going on and what’s going to happen. For example, our beach social story has pictures of our house, our car, our luggage, our family, the beach house we stay in, pictures of his room at the beach house, the beach, and pictures of things we might do at the beach.

We start showing the social story a few weeks ahead of time or even a month depending on how big of a change it is. For the beach, we even read it in the car on the way down and when we get there he’s excited because he has seen the pictures already and it looks familiar!

This particular social story we have now is definitely a BIG one and super important. There is a big change for him coming up at school and although we are nervous, we know that he (and our family) are well supported through it all. They put together a very nice social story talking about the things that will remain the same and then the change that will be happening soon.

We have been reading it every day 2 or 3 times a day to help him understand and be aware of what’s coming. So far he seems happy when we are reading it to him and that’s a great sign.

We are so grateful to have a school district that is supportive and accommodating to our son. They really do go above and beyond to help any way they can.

If you ever need help with a social story or looking for what to add/put in them, I’d be happy to help give ideas! And you can always try talking to your child’s teacher, therapists, school, etc and I’m sure they can help you too.