A 'Super' Summer School Experience

When I told my soon-to-be first grader that he had to attend summer school, he was not super happy about it. But we are three weeks into the program and the experience has been a surprising treat for the whole family.

The program is called "Social Detectives." At first I thought, "OK, call it what you want, but to my son it's still summer school." But as it turns out, we are hooked on the concept and creativity of this Superflex-based program.

The curriculum, adapted from Michelle Garcia Winner's Social Thinking program, teaches the kids (the Detectives) to learn about two types of “smarts”: school smarts and social smarts. Most children learn school smarts when they study things such as math, reading and writing. Social smarts are learned by being good "social detectives."

To be a good social detective, a person must use the tools in their social detective tool box which also help them to be a good whole body listener. These tools include: listening with our eyes, listening to the words someone is saying with their ears, thinking about what someone is saying with our brain, feeling what someone is saying with our heart and keeping our body in the group with quiet hands and quiet feet. These tools also help us to detect what behaviors are expected versus unexpected.

In this teaching comic book from the Superflex series (shown right), the superhero, Superflex, helps a little boy, Aiden, overcome the Unthinkable, Glassman (who causes our overreactions to small things), at just the right time: the first day of school. Superflex shows elementary school students how they can use strategies to conquer their own team of Unthinkables. Students learn to calm Glassman and discover ways to evaluate the size of problems and address other issues. As students face Glassman and other Unthinkables, they "build up and learn to flex nimble, new mind muscles—thinking skills that help them manage and work on the thoughts and behaviors that may be causing them problems," according to the book description.

The book's lessons and strategies guide students, with the help of their teachers and parents, through a "training session" in their own Superflex academy. By teaching students to explore the differences between Superflex and their own Unthinkables, kids can better understand their behaviors and learn to modify them.

My son brings home hand-outs that introduce us to each of the Unthinkables he is learning. Here is a list of the characters we have met that represent inflexible thinking or unexpected behaviors:

• Rock Brain: He exhibits inflexible thinking and only wants what he wants when he wants it. (Hmm… that sounds familiar?)

• Glassman: He shows a big reaction to a little problem and falls apart/breaks easily. (OK, OK, this might be the one Mommy has.)

• Mean Jean: She may get you to say mean or hurtful things to others or keep bragging, bossy, hurtful thoughts in your brain. (We all fear this one but it's so helpful to have a name to call it and strategy to apply when it happens.)

• Worry Wall: He worries and feels nervous so much about social situations that he "hits the wall" and stops being able to talk to all the people nearby. (A good character to talk about before the first day of school.)

• Wasfunnyonce: Does not realize that humor wears out pretty quickly. Has trouble recognizing appropriate times for humor and may cause other children to become silly when a moment is serious. (My son would love to be this guy, but I don't think he has enough comic material to keep going.)

• Brain Eater: He may be armed with several distractors. He will get your brain to think about other interests, images, videos or characters that are not related to the topic the teacher is on. (Ohhhh… that's why my son can't wear a Jedi costume to school every day.)

• One-Sided Sid: His brain thinks only about his plan, his interests and himself. He talks about his favorite topics most of the time and will sometimes interrupt to do it. (Met him at a cocktail party once… wait, or was that me?)

• Energy Hare-y: He has so much energy that he is constantly fidgeting or moving around, and he doesn't think about what the people around him need or how others around him are feeling. Sometime he teams up with "Wasfunnyonce" which quickly makes a group fall apart. (Ah, I could use some of that energy for good instead of evil!)

Can you spot these characters around you? Do they pop into your brain sometimes? Well, my husband and I have admitted that we can relate to the characters as much as the kids do. But now I have Superflex to combat these characters by using specific strategies:  Rock Brains needs to think about our solutions to problems and to be flexible and Glassman needs to stop, calm down, take a deep breath and use self-talk—“No big deal!”

The students (Detectives) role play different situations and come up with strategies to use when they encounter Rock Brain or Glassman.

After trying out this Superflex/Superhero Social Thinking concept at home, we just loved learning about those dastardly characters and practicing ways to defeat them. I often question if the school programs are focused enough on boys' brains and what excites them to learn. Well, bravo to our schools for allowing superheroes defeating bad guys in the classroom.That’s the kind of learning my son can wrap his head around. And as parents, we love having him come home from school so happy and excited to tell us what he learned.