An Attitude of Gratitude

Do you face a lot of questions in your life? Perhaps you find yourself wondering, “Why me?” or “Why am I like this?” or even, “Why did this have to happen to me?” You may ask practical questions about what you should do, where you should go, how you should spend your money, or what you should do or say when you’re with others.

You may also ask questions about others; about why they do what they do, why their situation has to be so difficult, or why they have to make your life so challenging.

Many of these questions are valid. Some have potential answers; such questions drive us toward effective responses from which we can mature, learn, and even experience much-needed and valued success.

However, other questions do not have answers, and instead serve to discourage us or even cause us to become anxious or upset. Often these are the “what if” and “if only” situations in our life, where we focus on the way things could have been, rather than on the way they are. We ask these questions over and over, and begin to get so caught up in them that not only do we not see any potential answers, but we begin to overlook other positives in our lives.

I was prompted to consider this idea after reading in a devotional book that gratitude (or thankfulness) “…is the difference between having our lives built around a question mark or around an exclamation point.” The author, Ronald E. Minor, points out, “We tend to blame the people and the circumstances around us for being dissatisfied with our lives.” He goes on to say that often it isn’t our circumstances that need changing, but that the change needed is in fact “inside” of ourselves. While we may face numerous uncertainties and difficult situations, our attitude, or the way that we view ourselves and our circumstances, and the choices that we make as we interact with others, are the only things that we can control (or at least try to control). And often an internal positive change can color our outlook on life so that it seems brighter, and even makes us seem more positive and enjoyable to those around us!

I’m guessing there are aspects of your life that could be better, whether they’re related to your finances, your profession, your relationships, your feelings, or your environment. That’s likely the case for every one of us! However, the difference between people who are miserable and those who are happy is often not their current circumstances, but their attitude toward them! Here’s a thought to ponder from Scott Hamilton: “The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” (If you think a gold-medal, world champion figure skater wouldn’t understand life with a disability, guess again! There’s an interesting interview which explains some of the struggles he’s lived with, as well as talking about teachers who made a difference in his life, and other lessons that he learned along the way. You can read it here: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ham0int-1).

This week the United States celebrates the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s a good week to take time to reflect on the things we’re thankful for: people and relationships, experiences, homes, food, jobs, transportation, health, weather, hobbies, work and rest, travels, future plans or dreams, lessons learned, beauty in the world around us, and material possessions. Whether we have much or little, most of us have something, and often we have more comparatively than others in our world today.

On behalf of the staff and board of The Gray Center, I’d like to thank you for your continuing support of the work we’re doing to promote social understanding around the world! Your purchases, attendance at events, emails, phone calls, and visits all serve to encourage us in our daily work to provide information and support for those living with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). If you’d like to give a tax-deductible donation, you can do so online at http://www.thegraycenter.org/store/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_ID=10. A financial contribution helps us continue to bring you the SUN News each week, to update our web site with valuable information, and to provide FREE phone and email support to people around the world! (Special thanks to those of you who have signed on at www.iGive.com/graycenter to have your online shopping benefit The Gray Center!)

Have a blessed, thankful week!

Laurel Hoekman, Executive Director
The Gray Center for Social Learning and Understanding
www.thegraycenter.org

P.S. Our office will be closed November 25-30 while staff members spend time with family for the holidays. We will continue to process your orders and reply to your phone and email messages in as timely a manner as possible! Have a great week!

Being a Social Detective

Do you enjoy reading detective stories? What is the appeal of a good detective story—is it the suspense, fun, intrigue, challenge, or unpredictability? Or is it perhaps the satisfaction that comes when we successfully solve a difficult puzzle…or learn from our inability to do so? Most of us do not get an opportunity during our lifetime to solve a major mystery. However, facing day-to-day social interactions can take the artful skills of a “social detective!”

Some of the tools needed by a social detective include:
- Social Smarts
- Thinking with your eyes
- Understanding the difference between expected and unexpected, and how to act or respond accordingly
- Smart guesses
- Understanding the feelings of others
- How to be a good social thinker

We have Michelle Garcia Winner to thank for developing this idea, and publishing a new resource which we can use to teach our children and students how to be good social detectives. “You are a Social Detective!” is a beautiful book that provides valuable instruction in a visual, fun, and easy-to-understand manner. It’s a fabulous addition to her other resources, both books and DVDs.

To celebrate Michelle’s contributions to our ability to promote social understanding—and to help YOU more readily access her wonderful materials—we are running a SALE on all of Michelle’s resources this week! (They make great gifts for teachers!) Go to www.thegraycenter.org to receive significant discounts on Michelle’s books, DVDs, and dry erase poster. Her materials have helped countless parents and professionals around the world, and The Gray Center is pleased to have published her DVDs, “Social Thinking Across the Home and School Day,” “Strategies for Organization,” “Growing up Social,” and “Social Behavior Mapping.”

Best wishes as you use your social detective skills to successfully interact with the people around you, and work to teach these valuable skills to others!

Laurel Hoekman, Executive Director
The Gray Center for Social Learning and Understanding
www.thegraycenter.org

Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy…

Although my six-year-old daughter loves school, there is one aspect of school that has caused her great consternation and grief—she is the only student who has not yet lost a tooth! Although her first grade classmates regularly enter their names on the tooth chart posted in the room as their baby teeth fall out, my daughter has had to sit back and watch each time, eagerly awaiting the day when she can also write her name on the chart! She is thrilled to finally have one slightly loose tooth, and asks daily for me to try to pull it out!

My daughter’s interest in losing teeth (and in our family tradition of putting a tooth under the pillow at night for the tooth fairy) brings to mind a SUN News article which I wrote in February of 2007. Since that issue generated a lot of interest and suggestions from readers, I thought I’d reprint it here:

Several months ago I received the following e-mail from one of our SUN members:
“The mother of a student with ASD asked us today about how to handle her son’s anger at having been lied to by his parents about the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa. He is a 5th grade student and has been told by a friend that all three are really his parents. He has been quite angry and has called his parents liars and said he is not sure he will be able to trust them again. He has a younger sister who is still a ‘believer.’ We realize that loss is playing a significant role here – this must come up for many, many kids with ASD. Do you have any suggestions for how to help this family handle the transition?”

I’m guessing that many of you can relate to this dilemma! I know that this issue comes up even in families that don’t have a loved one diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD)! I used to be a first grade teacher, and I remember the kids in my classroom getting into heated arguments about whether there really IS or ISN’T a Santa or a Tooth Fairy. Movie producers have some fun with this issue by creating movies such as “The Santa Clause” and “The Polar Express,” which inspire our fascination with the subject.

But while many kids grow up with a family tradition which promotes one of these beliefs, only to go through a period of revelation followed by ready acceptance, we know that for individuals with ASD, the loss and apparent deception can cause significant issues. The frustration and anger exhibited by this particular student is understandable!

So what are we to do? I would be as honest as possible with this student. Explain that these are “traditions” that are passed on from adults to children, from generation to generation. Often, when children grow up and become adults, they decide to pass the tradition along to their children by telling and acting out the stories of those traditions. Now that he knows that it is simply a tradition rather than reality, he can help to pass the tradition on to his younger sister. There may be ways for him to be involved in that! (When I was a child, I helped put cookies on the mantle for Santa, knowing that my dad and our dog would enjoy a midnight snack, but still enjoying the “game”–especially for the benefit of my little sister). He might be able to do some research on those traditions (Wikipedia would be a great place to start, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_fairy), or help his parents or teacher write a report to describe a particular tradition and how and why it’s celebrated. Like a detective, he may want to help look for “clues” that show that it’s simply a tradition (i.e. each mall has a Santa—one person can’t be at each mall at the same time!)

Depending on how seriously he is taking this, his parents might also owe him an apology, explaining that they had not viewed it as deception, but as the passing on of a tradition, but that they can see how it would feel that way to him. It’s important to validate his feelings, too!

The teacher is correct that this is also a loss-related issue. For more help on that (particularly if the previous suggestions didn’t help!), readers might want to check out Carol Gray’s “Gray’s Guide to Loss” here: http://www.thegraycenter.org/store/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=68.

I’d like to close with a quote from the Wikipedia site I noted above:

“The Tooth Fairy is an example of folklore mythology sometimes presented to children as fact…The realization or discovery that such stories are make-believe is considered a part of the child’s growing up…Many families participate in the roles of this myth even when the children are also aware of the fictionality…as a form of play or tradition.”

If you were considering writing a Social Story™ or Social Article™ to help explain this issue, that’s a great place to look for ideas to get you started! (Other suggestions for using this valuable technique developed by Carol Gray can be found on our web site at www.thegraycenter.org).

Best wishes, and thank you for the work you are doing to promote social understanding! If you have your own suggestions for dealing with this issue, please post them here.

Laurel Hoekman, Executive Director
The Gray Center for Social Learning and Understanding
www.thegraycenter.org

P.S. In honor of the children who ask good questions seeking helpful information, and just in time for holiday gift-giving, we’re offering a SALE on all of our children’s resources (books, DVDs, and CDs) at www.thegraycenter.org! (Some of these resources are for children, some for adolescents, and others for the parents and professionals who work with them). You can even save on Michelle Garcia Winner’s newest book, “You are a Social Detective!” Hurry—sale runs only through the end of the week!

Connecting the Dots

I recently came across interesting research from Harvard University. Research results are implicating additional genes in the expression of autism spectrum disorders (ASD); genes which are not missing, but are prevented from turning on during the process of development. Perhaps most fascinating is the fact that the research “…>strongly supports the emerging idea that autism stems from disruptions in the brain’s ability to form new connections in response to experience – consistent with autism’s onset during the first year of life, when many of these connections are normally made.”

 

For those of you living or working with individuals with ASD, this is not news to you. It can be frustrating for caregivers as well as individuals on the autism spectrum that lessons learned from one experience often do not generalize to the next experience, leading parents and professionals to bemoan the fact that they have given certain instructions “one (or three) hundred times” or that “they should have learned this by now!”

 

So if the autistic brain doesn’t readily support experience-dependent learning, what are we to do? Repeated exposure to activities and lessons may prove helpful, as the brain is given an opportunity to eventually form the connections that it needs. For example, if an individual has a weekly chore of taking out the trash on Fridays, after many weeks, months, or even years of doing so, he or she may eventually make the connection that because today is Friday, it is time to take out the trash. It may also be helpful to provide instruction which guides individuals through the process of making those connections and builds in meaning surrounding the activity. The individual can be taught (and prompted or reminded through Social Stories(TM), visual cues, or other strategies) that the trash needs to be emptied and set out at the curb so that it can be taken away by the garbage truck which usually arrives on Friday. Providing social information (i.e. reasons for repetitive activities) may help the individual generalize to new experiences, not only remembering to put out the trash each Friday, but perhaps even being more accepting of a week which includes a holiday, requiring the trucks to be on the road collecting trash on Saturday instead of Friday!

 

Because Social Stories(TM) are such a great tool for helping individuals make valuable connections between experiences, we are running a SALE on all of those resources this week. You’ll find instructions for writing a Social Story(TM) (via a download of “Social Stories 10.0” or the DVD, “Writing Social Stories with Carol Gray”), as well as sample Social Stories(TM) in Carol’s two books, and in our past issues of “The Social Stories Quarterly” (most of which are available as downloadable pdf documents). Incidentally, the Quarterly issues also contain samples of Social Articles, which can be used with individuals who are older or higher-functioning. If you are working with children or students who like to watch DVDs, Social Stories(TM) are also available as acted-out versions on DVD in the form of “Storymovies(TM),” also available at a discount on our web site this week at www.thegraycenter.org.

 

Best wishes as you work to help individuals with ASD form connections between life’s many experiences—unique and exciting, as well as routine and mundane!

 

Laurel Hoekman, Executive Director

The Gray Center for Social Learning and Understanding

www.thegraycenter.org

 

 

P.S. If you would like to read about the referenced research, you can find more information at http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/middle-eastern-families-yield-intriguing-clues-autism.