Social Emotional Support Strategies
In this time of social isolation, we know many of you are looking for free, timely information and tools to help your students, clients and children. Please know we are working as quickly as possible to give you accessible information, while also making sure it is of the highest quality and include critical information on how to best use our work. We always prioritize quality over quantity. That said, we will still be posting new, social-emotional support strategies as quickly and as often as we can. Each update can be found on this page and will address one of these four areas: 1. Read Aloud Books and Thinksheets, 2. Video Lessons, 3. Articles, and 4. Webinars.
We thank you for NOT reading our books aloud and posting them on other online platforms because once that genie is out of the bottle we will never get it back. Instead come HERE to this page to see what’s new.
How to Teach Social Thinking Materials by Age
Teaching our 10 Core Social Thinking Concepts
Our Newest Webinars
The Other Side of the Friendship Pyramid: Dealing with Dislike
Working with thirteen year olds can be tricky, especially when they are resistant to treatment and appear to revel in being “the most hated kid in school.” In our first-ever Aha! Teaching Moment video, Michelle Garcia Winner discusses developing the Pyramid of Dislike thinksheet to help a client realize it will be tough to make new friends when he spends most of his attention on the people he dislikes.
Addressing Social Competencies and Social Anxiety Using the Spirals of Anxiety
Some students have significant anxiety that can get in the way of them accessing their solid social knowledge. We have found that helping students learn about their own anxiety can also help them recognize and practice their social competencies. A few years ago I developed a tool, alongside and with a group of students, to help them talk about the complexity of their social anxieties and how it can impact their social world. We collectively named the tool, The Spirals or The Spirals of Anxiety. This article will show the tool and explain our group journey.
All the Zones are OK! Tips for Managing the Zones You’re In
The Zones of Regulation was created to help individuals manage the feelings they experience by identifying their shifting emotional states as existing in different “Zones”. It is important not to label one Zone as "good" and another "bad", rather that ALL Zones are OK as long as we MANAGE our Zone and express ourselves through behavior that is as adaptive and pro-social as possible given the situation and the student’s self-regulation abilities.
Become Closer with Social Distancing
Times of stress and hardship can drive us apart—but they often can also bring us together in positive ways we never imagined. The “social distancing” now required by the COVID-19 pandemic can actually foster better real-time communication and forge stronger, supportive relationships through flexible thinking, mindfulness, and socially smart technologies. Here are five ways to overcome the spiral of negative thinking, take control of what you can control, and positively contribute to the social emotional well-being of your community, as well as your own.
PDF download available to print and share.
Social Metacognition: Using Social Emotional Learning to Engage Hope
We don’t learn helplessness—it’s an innate brain default. We do learn how to create hope in our minds to avoid feeling helpless. By using language and metacognition in an internal dialogue, we can teach our social minds to push toward social emotional learning for new ways to handle ourselves in a range of situations. Aspects of the Social Thinking® Methodology provide pathways for creating and sustaining hope in our lives.
Remote Learning Tips & Resources
This is a continuously evolving document developed by www.quadprep.org, updated regularly as they sift through appropriate digital resources and at home activities that will stimulate critical thinking and engage with all aspects of your student’s intellect and interests.
- Books, Games & Posters
- Online Training
- Free Webinars
- Article Library
- Digital Products
Books & Games
Professionals and parents around the world are using our expansive collection of curricula, books, games, and posters to teach social competencies to ages 4 and up.
While our deeper work is for individuals with social learning challenges (autism spectrum levels 1 and 2, ADHD, twice exceptional, social communication disorders, etc. or no diagnosis,) a subset of our work is being adopted into mainstream classrooms and workplaces around the world to improve social-emotional learning for all.
Online Training
Social Thinking has helped more than 1 million educators, clinicians, and families teach social learners essential life skills including social-emotional learning and self-regulation. Wherever you are in your professional career or level of understanding as a caregiver, we can help.
Browse our entire collection of Online Training options, taught by our experienced practitioners and clinicians.
Free Webinars
Explore how to teach a variety of core Social Thinking concepts—for free. Browse our entire webinar collection and discover strategies to help people of all ages develop social competencies, self-regulation, social skills, social-emotional understanding, flexible thinking, and more!
Our webinars are not pre-approved for credit by continuing education organizations. However, all participants can download and print a Certificate of Completion.
Article Library
Social Thinking is proud to provide an extensive collection of free articles devoted to helping individuals build stronger social awareness and social functioning using the Social Thinking Methodology.
Browse our library of 100+ free articles and learn strategies you can start using right away. We’re constantly adding material based on the latest research and our evolving client work—so visit our library often and stay informed!
Digital Books
eBooks make it easy for children to explore social-emotional strategies to become stronger social problem solvers.
Build social awareness and vocabulary with Social Thinking and Me—a powerhouse of social knowledge to help children in upper elementary and middle school become stronger social problem solvers.
Teach social awareness and self-regulation with Superflex. Kids around the world are having fun learning strategies and practicing new skills to boost their “Superflex powers."