Using Social Stories to Prepare Your Child for a New Baby
Having a new baby is so exciting, but feeling worry about your child understanding and being prepared to welcome a new sibling is totally normal.
One tool to help your child prepare for the change that come with welcoming a new baby, is to create a social story. What is a social story?
“A Social Story accurately describes a context, skill, achievement, or concept according to 10 defining criteria.” - 2020 Carol Gray - Social Stories
Although social stories were designed for people with autism, I have used social stories in my classrooms with many young children to help them prepare for upcoming changes including changing schools, moving, and welcoming a new sibling! Especially for kids who tend to be anxious, these can make them feel calm knowing what to expect, and how to respond to their new situation.
As always, a key component here is anticipating any challenging behavior, and giving kids appropriate alternatives. It’s likely that with welcoming a new sibling, your child will be seeking out attention from you, need to lower their voice or have quieter play. Try to brainstorm ideas for alternatives that still help a child get your attention appropriately. We can’t just tell them what not to do, we have to give them new tools that get their needs met just as well.
This week I have a really special free resource for you to download. I have created a social story framework for you to fill in. Carol Gray provides a great resource on what makes a social story work, and I recommend you read through it to make sure you’re adding the required components.
Here are some suggestions for how to use your social story once you have it completed:
Print it out, and read it often!
Use the photographs you choose to help your child talk about the story in meaningful ways.
Have it out and available to your child to look at whenever they want.
Keep reading it after the baby has arrived.
Now one thing I don’t like to do is give you a plan without support. Please reach out to me if you have questions about how to fill this in, or make it work for your family!