Social Skills Unscripted

Our most effective strategy for helping our students understand the natural, social consequences of the choices they make. There are going to be people who hear it and maybe think they can't imagine implementing this strategy or feel surprised that it's successful. It may feel a little extreme. From...

The number one factor that has to do with whether other kids want to be around our neurodivergent kids, or not! This determines whether our kids have other kids who like them, avoid them, or even go out of their way to be unkind. This one thing is what our entire program at Starfish Social Club is b...

In this episode, we're talking about the SECOND most important concept in our program at Starfish Social Club: Helpful social feedback!

None of us are able to make progress if we aren't getting helpful feedback from important people in our lives! Without feedback, we aren't able to address the thi...

All about the connection our students have with each other at Starfish Social Club! We are talking about what makes the experience here so unique, some of the authentic conversations we have had with students around autism and uniqueness, and why we do not intentionally separate our students by age ...

The three things we've talked about over the last three weeks, and how they all come together to create our unique program and system at Starfish Social Club. The direct instruction through our curriculum, the feedback our students receive, and the community that is created amongst the students here...

This episode includes 10 building activities you can do with your kids or students to help improve their executive functioning skills. You can use any materials for this. We typically use Legos, but you can use magnetic tiles, blocks, or anything else your kids enjoy.

Segment from this episode:

Wh...

This episode is all about ways to improve kids' executive functioning skills using writing and drawing activities. Even if your kiddo is not a strong writer or doesn't enjoy writing, there are still plenty of activities on this list that they can do!

On this episode I give suggestions for how to su...

For the next several weeks, we are focusing on the concept of executive functioning. If you've been in the autism/ADHD/learning disabilities world for any amount of time, this term is probably really familiar to you. It can be defined in a lot of different ways, and it can be quite confusing. 

This...

It’s time for the goods!

So far, we’ve talked about stuff, about why having an unhealthy relationship with stuff matters, and about what NOT to do if your child struggles with this type of attachment.

Now let’s get into what we CAN and SHOULD do to help our kids!

• The easiest thing we can do ...

We've been talking about why some of our neurodivergent kids have an unhealthy relationship with 'stuff', and why it's actually a big deal. Today I'm sharing what NOT to do when it comes to dealing with all this stuff!

(If you missed the first two posts about stuff, you can read the first one here ...

Last week we started talking about the concept of 'stuff'. (If you missed that post, you can read it here.)

So why does it matter? Why is an attachment to ‘stuff’ something to even talk about, let alone be worried about?

Because of where it comes from and what it signifies.

• The things ...

Let’s talk about neurodivergent brains and stuff.

If your autistic or ADHD child (or you!) struggles with an unhealthy attachment to stuff, stick around. We’re going to talk about some of the causes for this attachment, how it affects those of us who struggle with it, and ways we can help our ki...