How our kids can get what they need

This blog post is a transcript of Episode 98 of my podcast/YouTube series. Because of that, it is not written to be grammatically/syntactically correct.

You can listen here and watch here.

Once upon a time, there were students who struggled with asking for help.

Some of the students never asked for help because they thought it made them look dumb, and looking smart was very important to them.

Some students really wanted to do things by themselves, and they would get to the point of melting down before they would ask for help.

Some students asked for help from people who weren't in a position to help, or asked for help at a time that wasn't ideal.

And some students would ask for help by whining or complaining or being rude to the very people they needed help from.

I created this lesson for all of these students.

In this lesson, I teach students how to ask for help. I teach why asking for help actually gives us a better reputation than not asking for help. Who to ask for help depending on the situation, and how to ask for help in a way that makes people want to help us.

This is lesson eight in our communication module, which is Module Three. This entire module has been about conversations, communication, explicit verbal interactions with other people. This is the last lesson in this module, and this lesson actually came about because I had a parent request that I teach the groups how to ask for help. It was not originally part of the curriculum, but one of the cool things about creating my own curriculum is that I can adjust things when and wherever I feel like they should be adjusted, and so I decided this module was the best place for a lesson about asking for help.

I think it's in module two, we have a lesson about problem solving, and we talk about how we have three choices when it comes to solving problems. I'm not going to give that away here, some of the information I save for the students who are in the program, but that's in a prior lesson in a prior module where we talk all about problem solving. I remind the students of that during this lesson, because asking for help is part of solving a problem. We usually don't have a need to ask for help if there's not a problem.

And 'problem' just means an unwanted situation. It most of the time does not refer to anything huge or significant. Most of the problems we have in our day to day life are neither huge nor significant. So when I use the word problem, it doesn't mean anything serious. It just means the bumps that come up every single day.

I remind the students how we talked about asking for help way back in module one, when we talked about having a reputation for being smart. Square students in particular often have a concern, a worry, that if they ask for help, it will make other people think they're not smart. In module one, we address this. We talk about how it actually makes people think we know that we don't know everything. Nobody wants to hang out with somebody who thinks they know everything. So when we can show that we know we don't know everything, it actually helps create a reputation for being smart.

Triangle students tend to want to be independent and do a lot of things on their own. I remember I was a triangle student as a child, mainly at home, not so much at school, but I remember I had gone maybe to a summer camp or something one year when I was probably 10 or 11, and when I came back, my mom and my brother had painted my bedroom a new color. It was a color that we had agreed upon. My bedroom when I was little was a little kid decorated kind of bedroom, and so we had agreed upon what the new color scheme was going to be. I came back from wherever I had been, and my mom and my brother had painted my room.

In their perspective, they thought that was a really helpful, friendly thing to do, and they expected that I would be happy and grateful and ecstatic that they had done this and that I didn't need to do it. That's not at all how that went down. I was very upset that they did something that I wanted to do, and that they did it to my room. The sense of ownership was huge. I was upset for quite a while about that, which neither one of them were expecting. I think if they would have thought about my personality more, they might have reconsidered, but it's a great example of how triangle students really like to be independent and want to do things on their own, and so they are less willing and less likely to ask for help. They also, when they do choose to ask for help, will often ask for help when things have gotten to the point that they need to ask for help, which means they're tired, they're frustrated, they're overwhelmed, and so their requests for help can come out as whining, complaining, yelling, just not the kinds of things that typically would cause someone to want to help us.

Circle students typically don't struggle with the act of asking for help. They tend to be pretty comfortable with that. What they do struggle with, often, is knowing whom to ask for help. In X situation, who's the most appropriate person to help? Knowing when to ask for help. For example, not interrupting a class to ask for help. And knowing how to ask for help.

Often circle students have been helped their whole lives. People tend to naturally help them do things, even to the point where people will help circle students when they didn't ask for help. That's a big thing that I try to be mindful about when I'm working with students, is I expect and elicit communication from everybody. I try not to jump to judgments and conclusions about who might need what. I sometimes even set up scenarios where I know someone will need help, and I specifically set it up to prompt them to ask for help. For example, if we are doing an activity where everybody needs a pencil, I won't give anybody a pencil, and I'll wait and see who's going to speak up and say, "Hey, Steph, we need a pencil." Sometimes I'll even leave one less chair than we need in the group and see who is the last person to come into the group and see how they handle that.

I also, anytime a student comes to me with a problem or an issue or something, they will usually approach me by telling me what the problem is, and my response is, "What would you like me to do about that?" I don't say it in a rude or a dismissive way, I say it in a factual way. I really want to know what they would like me to do about it. Sometimes they have an answer. Sometimes they can immediately determine what would be a great, helpful step for me to take, and sometimes they have no idea. And sometimes that's the end of the conversation. For example, if somebody says, "Steph, my stomach's upset," I can say, "What would you like me to do about that?" Or I'll say it a different way, "How can I help with that?" And sometimes they'll say something like, "Can I go to the bathroom?" Absolutely! Sometimes they'll say, "Can I lie down for a little bit?" Sometimes they'll say, "I don't know." And then I respond with, "Let me know if you come up with something that I can do." So I try not to step in and solve problems for students. Again, I think especially for circle students, people tend to just naturally help them.

The same is true for students who have cognitive delays, students who have language delays, students who have physical impairments, people around them are just more inclined to step in and help without eliciting a request for help from that student. We are more inclined to just go ahead and help without actually waiting to see what they're going to do.

Many years ago, I was doing an activity with a group of elementary students. It was another activity I had purposefully set up where they needed colored pencils, but I didn't put them on the table, and they were hanging in a bucket on the wall. And so I said, "Okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to draw this thing." Everybody's sitting there, and then one of the boys looks over at the wall, and I didn't realize it, but the pencils were too high for him to just go over and take, which was probably intentional on my part, so he took a chair, took it over to the wall, stood on top of the chair, and grabbed the bucket of pencils and brought them to the table. Such a brilliant solution! I would have preferred him to not climb on top of the chair, but that was his way of solving the problem. It's such a brilliant solution. Obviously, that was a triangle kiddo who wanted to do things on his own. One of the other personality types probably would have asked for my help, but I am all about independence, so that actually made me really smile when when he did that.

That's how our three social personality types approach asking for help differently. Just like every other lesson in my program, the approach for each one of them is different. The reason behind the challenge is different, but the way I address it and the information is the same for everybody.

We have a discussion about, as we get older, we are expected to do more things on our own. I will ask everybody to think of an example of something that mom or dad or older sibling or grandparent or teacher used to do for them, and now they're expected to start doing it on their own. Some students, especially circle students, can't always think of something, which is pretty telling. The triangle students usually can because they want to be able to do things on their own. So this is just a fun way to kind of assess who is starting to do things on their own and maybe who isn't yet.

Students will give examples of things like getting their own clothes for school, making a snack for themselves, tying their shoes, maybe feeding a pet, taking a pet out, taking the trash out, lots of chore-type things come up. Sometimes it's being responsible for getting up in the morning, depending on how old they are. So it's a great example to just hear from the students, what are some things that you're starting to be responsible for on your own?

We talk about the person we're going to ask for help. If we really want to try to solve a problem, it's important that we identify the person or the role that would be in the best position to help us solve this problem. I share some stories about this.

One story I share is that there was a student who went home after game time one week and told his mom that he didn't like the games that we had at Starfish, and he didn't want to play any of them. His mom sent me an email and said, "Hey, I just wanted to share this with you. This is what he said when he came home." The funny part about that is, this was several years ago when I had probably 80 games at Starfish Not even an exaggeration, probably 80 games. So the concept of somebody saying, "There's nothing I want to play," that's a different story for another day. But the point of this is, I tell the students that that story, and then I will ask them, "Can his mom help with that situation? Can his mom help with there not being games at Starfish that he wants to play?" And again, because I'm asking the students the question directly, they recognize that the answer is not straightforward, and some, usually several, students, will recognize that the answer is no, his mom can't help him with that, because she's not at Starfish. Parents don't come to Starfish.

Multiple times in this lesson, I will clarify that students can tell anybody they want to about any problem or challenge or issue that they're having. You can tell anybody you want to. But if you want help, that's when we have to be more specific about who we talk to. So just to clarify, I don't ever want to be misunderstood that I'm instructing students to only talk to certain people about things. You can tell your parents about any challenge that you're having at Starfish, at school, wherever. But if you want help with that challenge, think about the best route to get that help.

I give the example: If you're having trouble with your math homework, can you tell me about it? And of course, because of the way I ask it, everybody says yes. So yes, you can absolutely tell me if you're having a hard time with your math homework. Is that something I can help you with? And the answer is no, because I don't have anything to do with your math homework. I can help you with math, we can talk about math, but I don't have anything to do with your math homework. That's not my role in my student's life.

The next part of this lesson is talking about when to ask for help. We go back to the concept of how most of our day to day problems are small, which means they're not urgent. They don't have to be solved right away. It's not uncommon for some students, particularly circle students, to want to bring something up as soon as it happens, and maybe to interrupt a class, interrupt a group, interrupt people talking to each other, because it's on their mind right now. The same happens with triangle students if things get to the point that they have gotten overwhelmed or frustrated or angry, they want a solution now.

This part of the lesson is about recognizing that our problems typically aren't everybody's problems. Sometimes they are. That's when we talk about medium problems and big problems, when it's about more than just us. But if it's just about us, we need to figure out when would be the best time to ask somebody for help. Ideally, it's when the person that we're asking is available, both to listen and to help. So it's not when that person is teaching the class. It's not when that person's having a conversation with someone else. It's not texting our parent when they are in a meeting. Building this social awareness of when is the appropriate time to have a conversation like this with another person.

If we talk about our triangle kiddos, the best time to ask for help is usually when they are able to do so politely and respectfully, which usually isn't right now. Usually it's after they've had a chance to decompress a little bit. Even in Starfish in the group, sometimes we can be in the middle of a conversation, we can be in the middle of this conversation, and somebody will ask for help with something. Maybe they feel like someone is sitting too close to them. I point out whether this is the time to talk about that, or whether maybe it can wait.

in line with this, one of the topics, one of the themes that comes up repeatedly throughout all the time I spend with my students, is that it's always okay to feel the way you feel. And I put this in the book as well, this is part of the book 'Social Skills is Canceled, it's always okay to feel the way you feel. I bring it up again in this lesson. I ask it as a question, because it's reinforcing when the students answer yes, as opposed to me just saying it. Is it okay to feel frustrated or angry or overwhelmed? Of course, by this point, the students will say yes. If there's anybody who's newer, and they might think no, it's not okay, they will notice that all the other students are saying it is okay. It's always okay to feel the way we feel. It's okay to be frustrated, it's okay to be overwhelmed, it's okay to be angry, it's okay to be excited. We just want to pay attention to the choices we make when we feel that way.

This is when I share that some of us, sometimes, might ask for help in ways that aren't as likely to get us the help we're asking for. I share another story. I love sharing stories because, even if I'm sharing a story about someone who's in the group at that time, sharing stories makes it impersonal. It makes it about someone else. That's the first part: it makes it about someone else. The second part is that, because I tell stories about other Starfish students, it makes it relatable. We're all here working on the same stuff, and so when I tell a story about another Starfish student, it's relatable.

The next story I tell is about a student who was in middle school and was upset that, during game time he recognized that another student was cheating in the game. He got very annoyed and frustrated and angry, which is absolutely okay to do. The choice that he made was he flipped the game in the air, and all the pieces went everywhere. All the other students who were playing the game definitely weren't expecting that, and then they got frustrated and annoyed and angry. So I'll ask the group, "Does that response make people want to help us?" The students recognize that no, it doesn't make people want to help us when we have a response like that to needing help. And I ask, "How do you think everybody in the group felt? How do you think they reacted, how do you think they responded, and what do you think that student could have done differently?"

Another important point of this lesson that I share is the reality that most people in the world like to be helpful. Not everybody, but most people. It's actually part of being human. I'm reading a book right now about why people help each other. It's a fascinating book. It's way too scientific, I didn't realize we were going to get that into it, but it's a fascinating book about the evolution of humans helping each other, because it's actually against our design. We're here to save ourselves, and helping other people doesn't save us. There are even times where helping other people hurts us or causes us to no longer be here. Most people in the world want to help other people.

Some of the things that get in the way of that are yelling, complaining, thinking that people should be helping us, etc. So when we ask for help, we want to do it in a way that makes people want to help us. I share with the group that that's actually a really easy thing to do. There are two really easy ways that we can ask for help that make people want to help us. I'm not going to share them here, I'm going to save those for the students that are in the group. But they are easy, simple phrases that we can say that make people want to help us. I even share that I've been in other countries where people speak languages other than English, and I've said one of those phrases in the native language, and it has the same effect. It just makes people want to help.

The last part of this lesson is a discussion about how all of us are different. This is another recurring theme in my groups. Part of the purpose of the groups is to help us all understand each other better. By that, I mean ourselves, for all the students to understand themselves better. But another part of it is for them to understand other people better.

In order to accomplish that, we often talk about how people are different. Anytime there's an opportunity, I will mention that. If somebody is having a hard time paying attention, I use that as a great example. "We all have different abilities to pay attention!" If somebody has a physical difference, we'll talk about that. "Isn't that so cool, how all of us just look a little bit different?" I've used it when some students have trouble communicating due to a speech impediment or whatever the case may be. "Isn't that interesting how we all talk differently?"

In this context, I use it to talk about how some of us need help with things that other people don't. And we all have things that we struggle with that other people don't. It's part of being a human. It's part of being a person. I do often in the groups specifically talk about autism and ADHD, because that's almost every student that I have ever had in nine years, and I like to normalize both the strengths and the challenges of autism and ADHD. I love having conversations with students about themselves. Even if they don't know their diagnosis, even if they don't have a diagnosis, they can still participate in discussions about their strengths and their challenges. It doesn't have to have a name.

So we wrap up this lesson by having everybody share things that they notice they need help with that not everybody else does. Common examples are: Math, there are some students who just really struggle with math. Writing is another one that a lot of students will say. Some students will say some form of anger management or emotional regulation. For some students it's coordination, so maybe tying their shoes is something they have a hard time with. For some students, it could be remembering things. It could be paying attention. We all get to talk about something that we have a hard time with, that other people don't seem to have such a hard time with. It could be making friends, having conversations.

Then we get to counter that by sharing something that other people have a hard time with, that we do pretty well, or that is pretty easy for us. This side of things, this flip side, students don't often think about, so I love giving them a reason and an opportunity to think about this flip side of it.

The last discussion we have is that I share with the students that it is always their choice whether they want to tell somebody if they are autistic, if they have ADHD, if they have a learning disability, if they have a speech impediment, it's always their choice if they want to share that information. We have an honest conversation about, if there's ever a situation where they're in trouble, where law enforcement is involved, that it might be a really good idea for them to share this information. We talk about how it helps people understand us a little bit better if they know that we are autistic or have ADHD or have a learning disability or anxiety, especially in a situation where we may be in trouble, like something's happened at school and we're now in the principal's office, or where law enforcement is involved. Just something to think about.

Again, it's up to everybody what they choose to share, but it's just a seed that I want to plant for students to think about that it may be helpful to share that information. Especially if, in those situations, you're feeling incredibly anxious or feeling like you're getting really overwhelmed or upset and don't know how best to communicate. That is our lesson about asking for help.

Alright, random number generator, let's see what it's going to come up with next. It is number 12. So 12 would be lesson four in module two. Module two is our module about awareness, being able to pay attention to things. This lesson is humor feedback. This is an entire lesson about paying attention to our humor feedback. This isn't something that everybody cares about, but one of the points of this lesson is that even if you don't care about having a reputation for being funny, we don't want to have a reputation for being unfunny. So that's where this comes in. Thank you for being here, and I'll see you next time.