Social, Emotional, Behavioural and Adaptive strategies

This section covers Four categories:

  1. Social Recommendations
  2. Emotional Recommendations
  3. Behavioural Recommendations
  4. Adaptive Functioning

Some children that experience social emotional concerns may need support through both therapy and skill building. 

Therapy 

Some children may benefit for therapy and counselling for individual support to build coping skills and help recognize and label their emotions.

To Increase Skill Building 

  • Your client continues to  building their emotional regulation skills. Specifically building strategies when responding to challenging situations.
  • Your client learns to recognize and label their emotions.  Support the client in identifying their emotional reactions to different situations and what they can do to help alleviate negative feelings in this situations.
  • Encourage the client to enhance problem solving skills (e.g., ask the client what they did, what they could have done differently, and how they could have handle the particular situation better in the future).
  • Your client increases theirawareness of how their behaviour can affect those around them. For example, ask your client to describe the issue they are having, why they think this is happening and how your client can change their behaviour.

Stop-Think Strategy

Encourage your client to use the “stop and think” strategy to enhance their self-control. This involves teaching them a plan to follow to determine what is going on in a situation, think about what their options are, and choose the best one. Steps for using this strategy include:

Stop-Think Strategy

■ Stop and think.
■ Identify the situation.
■ Ask, “What do I want to do?”
■ Ask, “Is there a problem?”
■ Ask, “What are the possible solutions?”
■ Consider the consequences to each solution.
■ Choose the best solution.
■ Evaluate the results.
■ Coaching may also be an effective strategy at school and home to help improve your client’s social relationships. For example, emphasize good social behaviours and practice different ways to settle conflict or handle frustrating situations.

  • Encourage your client to continue to build their social skills to enhance their social relationships and improve their social functioning.