Social Skills Unscripted

Exploring the methods and strategies we use to help our autistic and ADHD kids learn to solve problems, discussing situations where kids may do things that are unfair to others, and how our students adapt no matter what group they are in or who they are with.

Listen to the podcast episode HERE.

Wa...

How we do classroom management with our autistic and ADHD students WITHOUT using threats or punishment, including lessons getting derailed, side conversations, and students camping out in the restroom.

Listen to the podcast episode HERE.

Watch on YouTube HERE.

This episode focuses on how we support kids who experience anxiety about joining the group or being here at Starfish Social Club. Also a sidenote about the importance of letting our kids do things in the ways that work best for them, and a story about our kids taking accountability and making someth...

Thinking about others in the context of a group, why we don't settle anything by voting (and what we do instead), the expected response when an acquaintance asks, "How are you?", the missing component when it comes to our kids being willing to make different choices, and teaching the concept of 'rea...

We are talking all about our cohorts, which are groups of similar-aged students who meet every other week. One week they plan an outing and the other week we go do it out in the community! We work on ALL the executive functioning skills in the context of our cohort groups!

Listen to the podcast HER...

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...