Kind Hands Social Story – Gentle Hands Resource
- Year groups
- Not Year Specific
- File type
- Preparation
- Print ready
- Subject
- Special Resources, Social Skills
- Topic
- Social Story, Kind Hands
- Preparation
- Print ready
From the author
About this resource
Social stories use a patient and reassuring tone to teach children about social situations in a way that can be easily understood. Social stories are particularly useful for children on the autistic spectrum for whom social cues can be challenging and who often suffer anxiety if they do not know what to expect from a situation however social stories can also be useful for any child who is struggling to understand a situation or concept or needs help to understand a social skill or social cue, expectations, perspectives, common responses or is troubled about an upcoming event.
This social story is for children who have been hurting others. It explains ways that our hands can be kind and do good things and ways that our hands can be unkind and hurt others. It explains the consequences of using unkind hands and encourages children to not hurt others.
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
- Identify hand actions as kind (waving, high five, shaking hands) or unkind (pinching, hitting, pulling hair, pushing)
- State at least one social consequence of using unkind hands (someone getting hurt, feeling sad, feeling angry, or not wanting to play)
- Recite the story's closing affirmation as a self-reminder to use kind hands
Teaching tips
- Because the story is written in first person ('I'), it works well read aloud with the child inserting their own name, or used as a self-regulation script a child rehearses independently
- The four unkind-action pages (pinching, hitting, hair-pulling, pushing) can be pulled out individually as a targeted reminder card for one specific behaviour, rather than reading the whole story every time
- Consider pairing it with a real classroom incident soon after reading it, since the story states general consequences but does not walk through a specific resolution or repair step
Skills covered
- Social skills
- Self-regulation
- Understanding consequences
- Social-emotional learning
Good to know
Questions teachers ask about this resource
Does the story name a specific child, or is it written to be used with any child?
It is written generically in first person ('I') with no name field or personalization anywhere in the file -- any child can use it as-is, or have their name inserted when read aloud.
No reviews yet
Downloaded this resource? Tell other teachers how it went.
Resource details
Concepts & topics
Core concepts
Core concepts
- Kind vs. unkind hands
- Cause and effect of behaviour
- Social story structure
Topics