Has your child ever wandered away from you in a big open crowded place – the mall, an airport a parking lot, in the Santa Claus line?

My story: When my son Matthew was four, he very quietly left our sides as his dad and I were engrossed in a cool potential purchase. Matt just up and sauntered out of a busy store into the throngs of people walking the mall. We were confident Matt was right there by one of us, until we snapped to consciousness, looked down and there was no Matt in sight. We exchanged horrifying looks of panic and bolted out of the store to search for our son, squeezing through the mobs to get across the mall. We found Matthew within minutes, but the search felt like eternity. We had followed our hunch, and sure enough, there was our Matt, sitting like the perfect preschooler quiet and cross-legged on the floor, beneath a row of TV’s, his curly head adorably tilted up, fixated on Big Bird. That is the huge moment of relief when you are torn between hugging him and yelling at him.

Kids want to do the same things we want to do in new places – roam around feeding our curiosity and gravitating to what interests us. Holiday time is extra tantalizing.  Glitzy mall decor. Larger than life airport attractions – big windows filled with runways and planes, huge signs pointing in all directions to shuttle trains, escalators and terminals.

Pro-active planning reduces the chances you will have one of those frantic, fearful events. Kids like to extend the boundaries when away from home, which makes it even more important to have your positive child discipline strategies in place.

These strategies do NOT replace a continual close watch on your child. While you are watching, your child is burning off  energy, enjoying some choices, and learning from new sights. You are having an easier time making your way through a busy place, and disciplining less!

Keep your younger kids safe (with just enough freedom) when you are on the move with

THREE SIMPLE  CONCISE CUE PHRASES

1. HOLD HANDS “When we are holding hands, I am keeping you safe in busy strange places. I will tell you when you can let go. This is maximum security, when you know it is a time to take no chances.

2. BE NEXT TO ME. “This means you cannot walk away.”  Explain  to older children “ If we are not holding hands  that means I trust you to stay next to me until I tell you it okay to do something different. “

3. BE WHERE I CAN SEE YOU “This means you can walk around nearby, a little as long as I can see you wherever you are and you can see me”. (Be sure you will be able to keep a straight line of vision to your child, and that she can  hear your voice.)

Prepare your child well in advance. Talk about the new system. Adjust the cue system according to your child’s age, stage of development and self-discipline with freedom opportunities. If your toddler has not had much experience leaving the stroller, practicing in more contained areas is a safer start.

Cue phrases work for kids and adults. Parents do not have to be tethered to their kids every second. Kids have some choice to have limited freedom to enjoy the delight of new sights. Parents are always in charge and make the judgment call about how close kids must stay.

How to Talk to your Younger Kids About the New Plan …

Preparing

“When we go to big busy places, I know you want to run and see all the interesting things to look at. First, I need to keep you safe. So we have a plan that we are going to practice and remember whenever we go places where there are a lot of people”.

“There are THREE different ways we can do it. I will tell you which the safe one is.”

“When I say ‘One, Two, Three, come back’, you must come back quickly.”

“When you listen quickly, it tells me I can let you do it again.”

Watch for the  next posting  on  best strategies for practicing these tips.

How did these tips work for you? I welcome your comments!

Ellen

By first understanding and working with your own feelings, you can set the stage for magical results with the very challenging people in your life!

1. Know your feelings – and how strong they may be – before you get into action with your challenging people.

2. Make behavior decisions that you will feel proud of. Your style will be their style. “They” learn by watching you and listening to you.

3. Know what others are feeling. Understand that you may not agree.

4. Find the words to convey your feelings without denying someone else theirs.

5. Seek out the good things in a situation, even if they are microscopic or a real stretch.

6. Be persistent – appropriately! Stay on track. Back off the track when you know you will get nowhere.

7. Monitor your impulses. Reflect on your own thinking that won’t help in the bigger picture.

8. You may need to withdraw your approval. But in the process don’t withdraw the love.

9. Have tools to manage your emotions before you are swept away by them.

10. Think about how you deliver your message. What would you be feeling if you were on the receiving end? Care about the feelings of the other person. It’s just the good old golden rule.

Refer to and live by these ‘process’ steps as you work with your challenging people and you will begin to see and feel how much easier it all can be.

What we Learned in Kindergarten

In pre-school, where a big chunk of the curriculum revolves around sociability, you can hear the specific details of a social behavior weaving through the daily dialogue. Listen to the teacher: “Sit in your spot and put your hands in your lap. Wait until it is your turn to speak. Raise your hand to say something.” Keep to the schedule: “It’s time to stop what you are doing. Pick up the toys. Put them neatly in their spots on the shelf. Then come sit quietly on the carpet.” There you have the clearly articulated, easily visualized micro steps that teach preschoolers to socialize, organize and ‘behave’ in a group setting. Then as academics move to the front of classroom priorities, social curriculum fades.

For our challenging loved ones, who continue to need to hear the information imbedded in those micro steps, school is a baffling and unfriendly place. The student with Asperger Syndrome who loves to be the researcher of the facts for a science project is unaware of the required ‘give and take’ in a cooperative learning group. Because she comes across as overbearing and inflexible, her peers tune her out, exclude her from group membership, and she has lost out on the joys of learning. The smart, active ADHD child has no strategies to contain his impulses and channel his abundant energy into his schoolwork, and so wanders around on the periphery of the learning action though he would really love to be center stage with his talents.

Along with their ‘challenging’ characteristics, every one of our challenging loved ones have their unique and often very charming set of strengths, talents and interests, which they yearn to share with others in some way. However, their behaviors tend to send a different, contradictory, self-sabotaging message. Shemay be solely focused on a preoccupation or her perfectionism. He may be an entrenched avoider, a self-appointed boss, or a full time worrier– or perhaps he does not seem to worry at all about the consequences of his choices. Her super sensitivity to touch or sound may invite alienation. Middle and senior high kids are labeled ‘losers’ because they are seen awkwardly wandering, lost in the halls of their own schools.

These are examples of the kid types who are stuck inside themselves, with their faces pressed upon the windows that look out at the social world of their peers, to whom everything seems to come effortlessly. Their peers know how to fit in and their reward is acceptance. And these challenging children grow up to be adults that also wander–lost in relationships, job settings and their social community. They are stuck in a confusing, isolating place, mostly misunderstood, misread, mysteries to themselves and others. And what they are really communicating through their behavior, is how very difficult it is to adapt to the world around them.

The Hidden Curriculum

What stands between those who are in the action and those stuck on the inside looking out? It has become known as the ‘hidden curriculum.’ They need steady education and specific skill coaching through those micro steps because it is not automatic for them to ‘get’ what is going on and then figure out ‘what happened’ or ‘learn their lessons’ from playing unfair or breaking promises, or ‘hogging’ the scene. In his book, It’s So Much Work to Be Your Friend, Richard Lavoie, M.A. M.Ed., discusses how each school has it own individual culture, which determines the details of the hidden curriculum and thus what it takes to be ‘in.’ He says “Your child is tested on his academic skills every few days, but his social interactions are ‘tested’ and evaluated hundreds of times each day.”

For our challenging loved ones who may have a diagnosis of ADHD, High Functioning Autism or Asperger Syndrome or another that brings with it behavioral challenges, the rules of social acceptance are invisible …until they have the opportunity to learn the micro steps.

What is a Micro Step?

‘Micro steps’ are the very teeny tiniest instructional steps that give the most specific and direct information to help your challenging loved one learn the how-to’s of being social or getting the job done. Micro steps are the missing ingredients that lie between what parents and teachers already know about behavior change, and what is left to insert into their behavior change or social skill-building program. Identifying those essential micro steps can be a very challenging puzzle. Micro skill building is a creative and systematic process where little batches of skills are woven together, with the incredibly wonderful payoff of teaching our challenging loved ones to navigate life independently, appropriately and happily!

The Broad Stroke Skill Sets

Following are some of the wider groups of skills which break down into the micro steps that are key to school and social success:

• self awareness and self reflection
• friendship building
• public appropriateness
• non verbal cues and emotional messages
• consideration: giving it and getting it
• choice and decision making
• mood tools and calming strategies
• putting personal strengths and interests to work
• disappointment and resilience
• handling rejection and bullying

And here are some of the ingredients that put the ‘Art’ into a behavior change program: goals, rules, feelings, rewards, feedback, motivation, structure, natural consequences, feelings of safety and belonging and more…

Exercise: The One Week Question

Here is the very first step in creating a social curriculum: Peer into the life experiences of your challenging loved one.

Spend one whole week focusing on what you see, feel and hear related to one question from the list below. Keep ‘the’ question tucked in the front of your brain, as you go through the regular weekday routines on into the weekend activities. Quietly observe. Collect pieces to the puzzle. Be curious. Wait patiently for information-collecting opportunities. Reflect about what is really going on. Make notes. Remember these are not solution questions. We are not there yet…now the questions:

• What are the biggest obstacles your challenging loved one encounters on a daily basis?
• If you needed to, could you accurately describe what the world is like through the eyes of your challenging loved one? Explore this.
• When the day has gone surprisingly well, can you identify any patterns or differences that might account for the better [and tougher] moments?

The answers you come up with will sharpen your insights about what is really going on. That knowledge will help you define the micro steps and be on your way to artfully customizing and individualizing a successful behavior program for your challenging loved one.

As parents, educators and caregivers are we paying attention to whether our children are excludersOR the ‘excluded?’

Rejection shows up in many ways. Here are a few:

Hurt in the words.

Sarcasm in the voice.

Behaviors that say, “You don’t belong.” “You are not wanted.” “You are not safe here.”

Feelings of profound sadness. Isolation.

The kids who are the last to be picked for the team.

A visibly ‘different’ adult sitting alone at a party.

A recent tragedy underscores how crucial it is to pay attention to situations where people send out a loud SOS for help with rejection. William Freund, a 19 year-old young man with Asperger Syndrome pleaded for help on an internet forum, conveying his despairing loneliness and inability to help himself find solutions. By the time anyone took him seriously, it was too late; he had killed two people, wounded another and fatally turned the gun on himself in October of this year. He had put out a plea for help worldwide, one could say, and no one helped him know that it could all be worked out.

Tune into rejection issues!

Here are ten tips and some tools to help challenging loved ones reduce their vulnerability to rejection:

1. Hone your radar to pick up rejection.

Heighten your attention to what is happening with the vulnerable children and adults that you work or live with. Do not presume they can come to you and label their feelings. Call upon your own childhood memories. Were you teased, bullied or isolated by peers? Or were you a witness to children who were? Make sure you don’t ignore what you see and know.

2. Have conversations to help them interpret social situations.

If your child has behaviors that set himself up as a target, work with him, in little steps, to build a stockpile of social choices that substitute for the intuitive wisdom that may not come naturally. “After you tell your new friend you like hockey, ask him what he likes to talk about.”

3. Help them verbalize any secret pain.

Rejected children know who they are and live inside brains that tiptoe around to get a break or to avoid heartbreak. They don’t learn well or behave too well either, if they are sad. If you are a parent, teacher or caregiver, you know rejection when you see it. You have an important role as a safe person for them to come to.

4. Help them have a plan for how to respond when things happen.

They will need steady guidance from you to learn the appropriate steps in various situations especially if there is a diagnosis such as Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism.

5. Notice who are the players.

Where there is a group, there is a leader. Leaders are gatekeepers of acceptance; our challenging loved ones don’t know how to navigate the politics of groups. They need extra protection. You may need to guide the leader. Or you may need to deal with a ‘boss.’ Girls tend to have a different style of excluding. They do it more privately. It is difficult to create outright acceptance when kids or even adults want to make their own choices in the company they keep, but you can set out clear expectations and boundaries about how people are to be treated.

6. Make sure your child knows what wonderful talents or strengths he has going for him. [And every one does!]

Send ongoing reminders. Help her develop the happy feelings of pride and competence. Happy children learn better.

7. Show what kindness and tolerance look like.

Model them by making them routine household activities. If you want your child to learn what a nice person does, you have to show AND tell.

8. Keep your love and support solid, despite how challenging it all feels.

When kids and special needs individuals challenge rules, irritate or ‘misbehave’ they may be telling you they are floundering in the chaos of not knowing how to deal with rejection. Be intuitive about what is going on.

9. Tap into the ‘nice’ kids.

Find designated buddies who can help in challenging situations. But beware this can be tricky business. Teachers and parents must help make this work so neither child feels they ‘stick out’ or have too big a burden in this partnership.

10. Think before you ‘leave them to solve their problems on their own.’

This strategy is not usually a good choice with our challenging loved ones who struggle with social skills. First, they need how-to tools. Until then, it may be too hard to go it alone!

Once overwhelm sets in and your child is melting down under a confusing to-do pile, it is can be a frantic challenge to dig her out and settle her down. Here are six pro-active strategies; so start now to see them really work!

1. Plan ahead. Shift gears before homework burn out sets in. We adults need quick pick-me-ups through the day; coffee breaks, power naps, a few deep stretches to keep alert. So do our kids. Work with your kids to help them discover their personal strategies to refresh and refocus.

2.Take many mini breaks. Plan for them so your student can look forward to a periodic relaxer. This is a good strategy to help kids with ADHD or Asperger Syndrome, or High Functioning Autism. If focus and concentration on a non -preferred activity is a challenge, you can build time on task. Break every 15 minutes or every 5 minutes if that’s where you can start with success.

3. Use their talents and interests to motivate at work time and enjoy at break time. At the pre-determined break time, it might be one round of table hockey or ten minutes with the colored markers or….just be sure to establish the rules ahead of time, something like ” this is a ‘mini break’ and a privilege and I trust you to stop and get right back to work when the time is up.” A minute timer is handy to keep nearby and you might be pleasantly surprised at how your child monitors his own breaks.

4. Just stop working for a while or for the day. Let the brain recharge. Loosen up on your homework rules when you know it makes sense, but make it a rare event. You know your child’s limits: when she will respond well to an extra push and when she is unable to push forward another bit.

5.Begin to handle a small piece of long-term projects as soon as the assignment comes in.Bigger projects are an opportunity to help your child learn to organize with mind mapping techniques.

6. Keep in steady contact with teachers. Be pro-active in preventing overwhelm in the form of an avalanche of assignments. Incomplete homework may suddenly show up, buried in folders or at the backpack bottom, and it all comes out as the grading period is coming to a close. Most teachers are happy to work on homework systems with parents to avoid late-semester chaos when it is too late anyway to catch up on those lost grades. If your child has an IEP, work together with the school to help your child make the best of his modification plan. Or follow that model; create a working relationship with your child’s teachers; set up a weekly meeting or phone call for a homework progress review or communicate in writing daily through a planner book.

Very Important Final Tip: Practice these steps before you have a homework crisis on your hands!

For some children, the biggest homework problem they have to solve is the volume they have to manage. Following are six specific ‘jobs’ for parents that will help keep things moving when the work load is weighty. These tips are especially useful with ADHD, Asperger Syndrome, High Functioning Autism or LD issues.

1. Be your child’s Admin Assistant. For example, to lighten the writing load, your child dictates while you type at the computer. Print it out and paste into a notebook if that is where the answers are supposed to show up.

2. Get them talking on the subject. If she’s stuck starting something creative in nature, such as a story or essay, coach her to stockpile any and all knowledge, ideas or feelings she has on the topic, no matter how little or how silly. You may be amazed at how a plan begins to bubble up and how thoughts flow when your child expresses them aloud first.

3. Chunk down the tasks. Help your child see a big workload as a series of manageable steps. Putting a title at the top of a blank piece of paper is often the first laborious step that flows to the next and the next. It’s the good old: “Little by little.” and “One step at a time.”

4. Create visual tools. Colored sticky notes are the greatest invention for visible goal setting. As assignments come in, each title gets its own sticky note. Color code according to due date or subject or what makes sense. Post on the wall. As the assignments are completed, another sticky comes down and satisfaction goes up. Incentives, rewards and break time can be built into the conquering of each sticky noted assignment.

5. You do the busy work while your child does the thinking work. For a display project, you can help move it along by cutting and gluing. For math, you can copy questions into the notebook, leaving space for your child fill in answers. (Most teachers will support this accommodation especially for students who struggle with LD issues. You can check with the teacher on this by sending a note with the homework if that would be more comfortable for you.)

6. Help your child keep his work area and tools organized–just enough. A tidy workspace clears thinking space in the brain. Create enough system so your child has what he needs within easy reach. Do not over-do organization; kids function differently in what adults consider clutter or bedroom chaos. Do stay involved. For a good habit of organization to take hold, parents need to coach until it is officially a habit. Be careful your support does not turn into nagging. Find strategies that work for your child to take charge of his systems.

To keep your child feeling calm and capable at homework time, it is important to think about who they are as an individual. A child who feels capable and successful is at his best as a student and a person. Emotionally intelligent parenting at homework time involves nurturing feelings of strong self worth when the work is frustrating and just plain ‘too hard!” These seven tips will help you create an approach that will support your child through the tougher work loads.

1. Help your child remember his strengths at the times he is challenged by his weaknesses.Remind him of some recent progress. “I am so proud of how far you have come in Math.” Encourage him to do better in the tough subjects but understand where the limitations are. If your child is just ‘not a good student’ remember that is what is happening now, in the present. It may take until college or a post high school program for your child to really thrive in a learning setting, that just right place that gives him opportunity to create using his natural talents. In the meantime, be sure to keep your child involved in extracurricular activity that helps him feel happy and competent at something he enjoys.

2. Did you know you were lecturing? Although your child may need homework help, she knows everything there is to know about the importance of academic performance. You will get a lot more insight about what works to get your child working, if you are doing the listening. Sometimes you are lecturing and you do not see it as such. Instead of struggling to come up with the magic words that get your child inspired to do homework, try something different: give her an opportunity to reveal her feelings about school work. See next tip…

3. Polish up your listening skills. Ask questions that lead your child to talk about what it feels like for him to be frustrated with homework. You may be amazed at how your child will open up to you when you give messages, through your words and body language that you are there to listen, listen, listen. It may not change the difficulty of the homework but your child will have had an opportunity to vent and feel understood.

4. Be OK with a mediocre grade. Sometimes helping them get to the finish line is the best thing you can give them with a difficult assignment.

5.Understand your child’s moods and thinking patterns. If your child goes to negative thinking – “I’ll never get this” replace the defeatist looping thoughts with other words that help your child keep perspective. Find a replacement phrase that works for him such as “I will do this the best I can and that is that!”

6.Be sensitive to your child’s sensitivities. Explore for hidden annoyances that keep your child from fully focusing. Sounds, odors, lighting or prickly clothing can be distractions, and sources of discomfort for some children who are very sensitive to their environment. This is commonly found with children, teens as well as adults who have ADHD, Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism. Observe for when, where and how their best work is done.

7. Remember: Kids do not like homework! (Well, very few look forward to it.) And what every child knows, and is not likely to admit, is that homework is one of those non-negotiables that you just plain do. And they do it best when they know you are behind them with clear and consistent support and guidelines. So, instead of getting entangled in irritating debate about doing homework, be sure to use that time and energy to work together

The words you use to state your rules supply important directions for how to get somewhere. When someone gives you driving directions, can you get there with: “To get to my house go west and turn right in about 15 minutes”? Too general. Too many possible choices. Vague. A well-stated rule is clear in its directions, describing exactly where you want a behavior to go.

Do your Rules Inspire Action? A rule answers the question “What is expected of me?” A well-phrased answer turns your rule into an action that can be clearly seen or heard. As an example, let’s explore a very short important rule, posted in every classroom and found in some way everywhere we go in life.

Listen to some of the many variations of how “Listen!” can look or feel when the message is put into the clearest of choice of words:

• “Have your eyes looking at me when I am talking.” (Be socially appropriate.)
• “Do what you have been asked – right away!” (Sense of urgency)
• “Be silent while I am speaking.” (I feel disrespected.)
• “Close your books and look up to the front.” (Take an immediate action, please.)
• “Put the game back into your backpack.” (Remove the distraction and give your full attention.)

Now you may say that we just know from the context of a situation what behavior is expected. True, for most…

A Case Study: What Does “Be Nice” Look Like for this Man with Autism?

For the first time in his life, Thomas at 35 was attending a Saturday night social for adults with developmental disorders. Thomas had High Functioning Autism. Upon arriving at the club, Thomas would quickly gravitate to the types of people who would be his perfect audience. He loved the limelight and good listeners who were not inclined to interrupt his long tales about his fascination with horse movies. If the ‘ wrong ‘ person wandered over, Thomas would protect his center stage by abrupt comments such as “Go away, you will interrupt me.” Or “You won’t be interested in this.” From his own experience, Thomas knew what it felt like to be treated unkindly and he did express genuine sadness when we pointed out how he hurt people’s feelings. Tacked up in clear view on the club house wall was a poster: Ground Rules for Making Friends, and the first item was Be Nice to Others.Thomas made no connection between that rule and the screening process he created in his determination to share his fascination. Thomas truly did not know what ‘nice’ and ‘not nice’ meant in such a situation. To him, he was just ‘saying it like it is’ and to others it was crushing. Thomas was baffled about what corrective action to take when his peers complained to program supervisors.

To help Thomas with his social skills and interpreting rules, we created a two step Action Plan.

1. Thomas was given this question to explore:

What do I need to do to be nice to others at the club?

Together we came up with:

Include everyone who wants to be in the group.

See if new people are interested in famous movie horses.

Think about how I would feel.

Stop at the decided upon time.

Self-monitor by looking at my watch.

2. Thomas helped to craft a statement for himself that would give him the words to create his ‘audience’ and also practice ‘nice’ behaviors.

“I am talking about famous horses. Would you be willing to listen for a few minutes?” When he began to feel territorial about his social circle, this question helped Thomas to handle his anxiety and get assurance that he would have his limelight time. It worked well – Thomas had plenty of time to talk to his satisfaction. We also set a time limit, which he would monitor himself, and step out of the limelight and practice his ‘audience’ skills. A support person would monitor this and in a matter of time, Thomas was able to estimate for himself when to call it quits.

To get him reflecting on the payoff of his new behavior, Thomas was asked the question: How does this new plan help you have a better time at the club? Thomas answered, “People invite me to sit at their table when I invite them to listen to my horse movie stories.” Thomas was able to connect how ‘being nice to others’ brightened up life at the club.

Remember to choose your words so that they vividly teach the how-to’s of being social.

When you are trying to set rules and limits, do you get caught in a cycle of repetition, nagging and exasperation? Your words seem meaningless, you hear yourself getting louder and mention of privileges or consequences is ignored.

The problem may be classic and clear-cut ‘misbehavior’ by your challenging children who know how to work the parent system and dodge the behavioral expectations. However, it is often the case, when parents or teachers are spinning their emotional wheels working harder to get nowhere, that the source of the problem is straightforward: their challenging loved one simply does not know what it is that he or she is supposed to be doing. In particular, for those who have ADHD, Asperger Syndrome or high functioning autism, we must supply the less obvious and usually unspoken steps.

Case Study: An Exasperated Mom

While I was waiting in an airport, a mom sitting a few seats down was trying to get control of a situation with her two active little boys. The boys were bored, tired of waiting for a delayed flight, and full of spiraling energy. To entertain themselves they began a game too loud and too physical for an airport. When the little guy, about 6 years old, turned his back, the older boy, about 9 years old, came up from behind and locked the little guy’s arms behind his back. And the little guy went for vengeance with his own brand of brother-torment, and so the cycle went – rambunctious wrestling, giggling and crying alternatively to “Stop it!” then goading on for more. Mom spent about 20 exasperating minutes earnestly trying to intervene, at the end of her mothering rope in her own cycle of calling out to the boys to “Stop that!” and “Leave him alone!” packaged with convenient threats and unappealing bribes. All three were burnt out and cranky as they boarded the plane.

How could mom have been more effective in getting the results she wanted?

New and improved scenario:

When it is time for the boys to settle, Mom gets the attention of each child, looking at each child face to face, one at a time, giving them specific instructions: “Jimmy, sit in this chair.” and “Bradley, sit in that chair.” And then, “Jimmy find an activity in your back pack.” and “Bradley, here are your crayons and pad of paper. And then: “You will both sit for 10 minutes and play quietly on your own. After that, If it is not time to board the airplane yet, we will take a walk. Then we will decide what to do next.”

What does the mom achieve in that new and improved scenario?

1. She gave the boys specific information to act on. “Sit there.” “Amuse yourself by [doing this].”

2. She gave the boys an end time when they could look forward to a change of pace and new information.

3. She gave herself a break by setting the boys up with alternative behaviors that averted her own meltdown and avoided embarrassment of her children’s behavior.

4. She saved everybody energy for the trip ahead.

When you are in the thick of things, pause, pull back and take a good thought-filled look at your current strategy. Get clear about what you are not doing or saying that may give you the missing pieces to the social skills puzzle.

These simple single-syllable words: sad, mad, and glad, are the easy first emotion words for children to use in ‘feelings talk’. Then, as they grow, and their every day vocabulary expands, the important job for parents, educators and caregivers, is to help their kids develop the awareness and the more expansive words to be emotionally articulate.

Think of ‘anger’. In a second you can have escalating conflict on your hands and you’re off and running with the energy drain of mediating and consequencing. Feelings education teaches alternatives. It may not happen every time but an emotionally tuned in child stands a chance of responding to a challenge this way: “I feel like I am going to burst into a rage, but I know there are people I can go talk to right away.”

Following is a menu of six fun ways to weave emotional education into your quality parenting time. Choose age and stage appropriate activities. What delights your little ones, may totally turn off your teens. The objective of these activities is to help them recognize a range of feelings in others and eventually, in themselves as well. For downloadable feelings face graphics which you can use as visual props, see the bottom of this article.

1. Early childhood storybooks. When reading picture books with young children, help them scan the illustrations for emotion. Dramatize the story by weaving in feeling words: “The wolf was seething with frustration when he could not get into the house.”

2. TV shows. Join them to watch, without judgment. Initiate discussion about characters and events. Attach interesting ‘feeling words’ to their observations. A ‘perplexing’ problem. A ‘moody’ friend. An ‘inspiring’ teacher. An ‘annoying’ classmate. A ‘monotonous’ story. Ask questions like “What would you feel?”

3. Film and video games. Catch the character’s body language cues: eyes wide, frowning, hands on hips. Provide a menu of emotion words, for example impatient, amazed, embarrassed.

4. Print publications. Create picture collections of real life situations that portray one emotion. For example, for the emotion proud, collect pictures of faces and events that depict pride and proud moments. When working with younger children or individuals with Asperger Syndrome or Autism, start with one emotion word and build, spending lots of time working with the ‘visuals’ of each emotion. This is a terrific way to spend time with your child in an ongoing project, organizing the images on index cards or in a scrapbook. Create activities: categorize, role-play, rate the feelings for intensity, make up silly stories. Ask lots of reflection type questions. Be imaginative!

5. Drama games. Make a list of feeling words and their corresponding body language and facial expressions. Be the characters. Be dramatic. Be silly. Exaggerate to make the point! This is a good exercise with children and young adults who have High Functioning Autism or Asperger Syndrome because they need explicit instruction in how to ‘read’ people’s faces and behaviors. Help them see the nuances of a single emotion.

6. Music. Listen and catch the moods. Imagine what the music is trying to communicate. Identfy what that would look like if it had a facial expression. Be creative with the wonderful potential of music.

For a good graphic guide of our many emotions, go to http://www.feelingfaces.com
Keep the feeling words rolling out, and have fun!