Making Mistakes Social Story

Name: Making Mistakes Social Story
SKU: its-ok-to-make-mistakes-social-story
Price: 14.99 GBP
Availability: InStock

Eight illustrated first-person pages walk a child from "I hate getting the answer wrong" to four things to do instead — say "That's OK, I'll just try again", cross the mistake out neatly, erase and retry, or ask the teacher — with an adult guidance page on sharing the story.

Making Mistakes Social Story preview: A title page

Pages: 10
File type: PDF
Preparation: Print ready

Updated Sep 27, 2026

Subject: Social Skills, Special Resources
Topic: Social Story, Autism
Preparation: Print ready

From the author

About this resource

The It’s Okay to Make Mistakes social story delivers a reassuring message that normalises and validates errors in learning. Making mistakes can cause anxiety for many children, especially those on the autism spectrum. This social narrative uses a patient tone and visuals to explain expected responses to mistakes at school. The story reassures children that everyone makes mistakes when learning new things. It emphasises teacher support and provides tips for overcoming mistakes like asking for help, trying again, and thinking positively.

Social stories outline social rules and expectations in a concrete way children comprehend. This story offers a starting point for talking about frustration and trying again. It guides children to see mistakes as an opportunity to improve rather than a source of shame. Teachers, counselors, and parents can use this story to shape perspectives on academic challenges. Use its examples to practise a supportive response to mistakes. Provide the level of adult support each learner needs. This social narrative delivers a lesson essential for social-emotional health - we must allow ourselves and others to be imperfect. It models this outlook through reassurance and practical examples.

These books should be used over and over to reinforce the point so I would suggest either putting the pages into a display book or laminating and binding them.

Clipart images courtesy of Kari Bolt.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Recognise and name the frustration that follows getting an answer wrong, rather than acting on it
Repeat the reassurance that everyone makes mistakes sometimes and apply it to their own work
Choose one of four named responses to a mistake: positive self-talk, a neat crossing-out, an eraser and a retry, or asking the teacher for help

Teaching tips

The guidance page asks for a distraction-free one-to-one setting and two readings the first time, then regular revisiting; a single reading is the mistake it explicitly warns against
Work the story into a fixed point in the child's day so it is familiar before it is needed
The story can be read at the moment a mistake upsets the child, but the guidance page is clear it must not read as a punishment
The four strategies are separate pages, so a child who is not ready for all of them can be given one page as a reminder card
Pages carry one sentence each, which makes them suitable for binding into a display book or laminating for repeated handling

Skills covered

Emotional recognition — the child reads a page that names their own reaction, "It makes me feel angry and frustrated with myself", before any solution is offered.
Positive self-talk — one page scripts the exact sentence the child can say to themselves after an error: "That's OK, I'll just try again."
Practical error correction — separate pages show putting a neat line through a mistake and using an eraser to rub it out and try again.
Help-seeking — a page tells the child that when they are unsure what to do they can always ask the teacher, giving a named alternative to freezing or giving up.
Adult delivery of a social story — the guidance page sets out the setting, the two initial readings, the revisiting schedule and the praise that make the format work.