Kind Hands Social Story – Gentle Hands Resource

A first-person social story walks a child through the difference between kind and unkind uses of their hands, naming pinching, hitting, hair pulling, and pushing as unkind before closing with a reassuring statement that using kind hands helps everyone feel happy.

Year groups: Not year specific
File type: PDF
Preparation: Print ready

Updated Sep 24, 2021

Subject: Social Skills, Special Resources
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 specific hand behaviours as kind (waving, high fives, playing) or unkind (pinching, hitting, hair pulling, pushing)
Understand how unkind hand behaviours affect other people's feelings and willingness to keep playing
Practice using kind hands consistently as a way to keep friendships positive

Teaching tips

Laminate or place the pages in a display book, as the resource is intended to be read repeatedly to reinforce the message rather than read once
Read one page at a time with a child immediately after an incident involving unkind hands, using the story's own simple language to name the specific behaviour
Pair the story with a follow-up conversation asking the child to name one kind way they could use their hands instead

Skills covered

Behaviour identification — students learn to name specific hand behaviours as kind or unkind using the story's own simple vocabulary.
Cause-and-effect understanding — the story walks through how unkind hands lead to others feeling hurt, sad, or angry, and not wanting to play.
Self-regulation language — the story gives a child simple, repeatable words ('kind hands') to describe the behaviour expected of them.