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This is the podcast for us dance teachers balancing our teaching job with other jobs, commitments, and just life in general! We don't need to know how to run the whole studio, work with students 20+ hours a week, or win big at competitions; we just want practical advice and real conversations about how to be the best dance teachers we can be with the little time we have with our students. Join Maia on the casual dance teacher's podcast and in the casual dance teacher's network on Facebook.
Welcome to the Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast. I'm your host, Maia. No matter who, what, or when you teach, I'm here to share all my best tips and tools along with real and practical conversations with fellow dance educators to help you be the very best dance teacher you can be.
Let's talk about it. Hello, everyone. As we're getting close to recital time for a lot of us, I have a topic today that I'm really excited about.
It's something that has been super helpful for me personally, and I'm just looking forward to delving in and talking a little bit about my personal experience and also how I think that this can help a lot of you. So we are talking about social stories today, and particularly using social stories to prepare students for a dance recital. Right off the bat, I'm so curious to hear from you.
How many of you have already done this? How many of you have already used social stories in some capacity in your dance teaching? It is a practice that I think is growing in popularity, particularly to assist students who are neurodivergent or have different processing needs to better equip and prepare them for various situations. So I'm sure I'm not the only one that has experience with social stories, and I would love to hear from you if this is something that you do and how you do it. You can share that with me in the Casual Dance Teachers Network Facebook group, or if you're not on Facebook, you can also shoot me a message or reach out to me on Instagram at the Casual Dance Teachers Podcast, or just comment on the episode.
I never say that. I don't think I've ever said that on the show ever before. I leave a comment on the episode wherever you're listening, but that is also an option, and I will see those comments as well.
So yeah, however you can reach out to me, let me know your experience with social stories or if this is the first time that you're ever hearing about them. So I had not heard about social stories until recently, but for those of you that have missed this in previous episodes or are just joining us, I have a six-year-old son who has autism, and I've spoken a few times on the podcast before about various ways that my experience with my son has helped prepare me for working with all of my students as a dance teacher, not just students with autism. But social stories was something that I was introduced to as part of working with him and helping prepare him for new environments.
And if you don't know what a social story is, essentially it is a visual tool to break down exactly what someone can anticipate experiencing when they go to a new place or engage in a new activity, whatever the case may be. So today what I'm going to be talking about is recital social stories, where we have a written and visual guide to walk the students through what they will see, what they will do, and what they should expect at their recital before they ever set foot in the rehearsal space. What sets a social story apart, as the name suggests, is it's written in narrative form.
Or if you're not writing it out, a video is a very valid social story. It's told or it's demonstrated in narrative form. So it's not a checklist.
It's not a step one, this step to that. It is describing what's going on during the recital time, as if the person is experiencing it in real time. I do want to say before I get into this, which I kind of already prefaced by saying like, I'm a mom to an autistic kid.
I'm not a therapist or a clinician, and I don't have any formal training in social stories. So I'm not trying to detail the exact sort of clinical formula for how to successfully create a social story on today's episode. I really am trying to spread awareness that this is something that you can do and talk about how it can be applied to the dance recital scenario.
And I'm hoping that if this is something that you're not already familiar with, and you're looking to implement it, that you will go ahead and seek some professional input or do some additional research online. And to help you with that, I have referenced the social stories template that Carol Gray put out. And that is much, much more detailed about what actually goes into making a social story that is neurodiversity affirming and helpful for folks who need it.
And I will link the PDF that I used to gather that information in that Casual Dance Teachers Network Facebook group. Look in the files tab for that document. And again, you can always reach out to me if you need help getting access to that.
So I'd really encourage you to look into that. I just within this episode, I don't really have the time, nor is it really my area of expertise to go into the technical requirements for a social story. But again, having experience with using them for my own son, both formal ones that have been made by professionals and just piecing together my own as needed.
This is something that I think there's a very, very low barrier to entry for anyone to do this and utilize it. And there is no downside that I can think of to having at least some kind of simple social story for your recital. And there's so many different ways that you can do it.
You can be creative and create something that works for whatever your situation is, your studio culture, the environment in which you're presenting your final recital or showcase. It does not have to be this huge, huge project. Okay, so I'm going to get more into how we might be able to put this together, what it might look like.
But I don't want anyone to be freaked out or think I don't have a lot of time. You know, dance recital is already so taxing, so draining on me. I can't possibly do this.
I think the benefits are so significant, even if you only put a very, very small amount of time and effort into this. So if you want to make a social story for your dance recital, it's really up to you how you want to structure it. I almost was going to make a template and I realized that there's so many options for how to make a social story and everyone's recital is going to look so different, be structured so differently that there's really no one size fits all solution.
The way that I've most typically seen social stories structured is they're just in a Word document or a slideshow, say on Canva, and they contain both simple sentences and photos for each step of the process that the student or recipient of the social story is going to be following. I have, however, also seen very cool videos where someone just grabbed their camera and walked through that process and narrated what they were doing all on film, and then that was their social story. So if you're asking what to include, I want you to imagine that you have never been to a dance recital ever before.
Don't assume that the person knows that they'll have to wait backstage or that there's a changing room for costumes or that there will be bright lights shining in their eyes, right? These are all things that we expect when we go to perform, but someone that has never been to a dance recital doesn't know anything about dance or about the process is not going to know to expect those things. Now I want you to start at the very beginning, okay? So don't start your social story with, okay, when you're backstage, you have to line up quietly and then go on stage. That is already like the end of the process.
So let's take a look at what the process might entail for someone that has no idea. Now you could do just a day of social story, but I'm going to take it even further back, starting with when you're at home, what to pack. And remember, this can be as detailed or as simple as you want.
So that step could say, before I head to the venue, I pack my bag. I double check that I have everything I need. If you really want to be fancy, you could start to list out in detail those, but you don't have to.
The main goal of this, remember every single step of the way. The main goal of your social story is to mentally prepare your students for what to expect. It's not to include every single detail with every single timeline and schedule for the whole recital week.
It's to let them know from their point of view, what to expect, letting them know to expect that they need to pack a bag and be responsible for it can help set those expectations and allow them to keep them in their mind consistently leading up to the day that they need to do it. Then when it comes time, mom says, Hey, pack your bag. It's not a surprise.
Mom's not dealing with pushback or whining or crying or anything like that. Everybody's happier. Let me get my next example.
You go on to the next slide or you scroll down a little bit. You add a picture of a face of makeup, the way that you want it done for the recital. Before I leave for the auditorium, I put my makeup on for someone with sensory needs.
Makeup and hair can be really, really dysregulating. So putting that in the story lets them see visually. Oh, this is what my face is going to look like.
This is what my hair is going to look like when I'm done with that process. That might be good motivation for them to sit through that. It also gives an example that the parents can copy.
I cannot tell you how many it's every, every recital I've ever done. There's kids showing up with their makeup totally wrong. And I'm not saying that to shame anybody because parents that don't do stage makeup are not going to know how to do stage makeup, right? The social story is for the kids.
It is to prepare them and set expectations. But if you have a picture of what the hair and makeup looks like, and it says, before I leave for the auditorium, my mom does my hair and makeup. I guarantee it's helping the parents.
Okay. Optional step. You could say, I don't pack my blah, blah, blah.
And you could show a picture of a kid putting a toy back in their room. Or in your video, you could have someone demonstrating that you're leaving the tablet on the table and then walking out the door. So, you know, sticky items, certain foods and drinks, those tablets, loud toys, you might want to put a reminder in there.
Those are going to be staying at home. Okay. So we're putting in there from the child's point of view.
I'm going to leave my blank at home because blank, because I want to keep my costume clean, because I don't want to distract other dancers, because I'll be listening backstage, something like that. Okay. So those are things that you might want to include for the student, as far as setting expectations of what they're going to do before they leave.
A very, very important one for me as a parent that I've always appreciated having included is the parking situation. This is another one that's going to help parents, obviously more than kids. But if you're like, that doesn't help the kid at all.
Yes, it does. Get a picture from within the parking lot, looking in the direction of where they need to walk to get to the venue. So I'm using auditorium as an example.
I know that everyone is going to have a totally different situation when it comes to recitals, or you might not even have a recital. It might be just a little demonstration at your studio, in which case you might not need to include parking. But if the parking situation is not where the parents are used to going for their regular classes or where the students are used to going for their regular classes, it's going to help the parents to show where the parking is and what they should expect regarding parking.
And it's really going to help a student that has anxiety around being in a new place or trying something new to see the POV of, okay, when I get out of the car, this is what I can expect to see. They will have already seen this in the picture in the video that you provided in the social story. And so when they get out of the car, they're not going to go, mommy, where are we? How far do I have to walk and carry this heavy bag? I don't want to go.
This isn't where I go to dance, right? You're reducing all of that because they see the picture that they've already seen in the story, and they know to just walk in that direction. And if there is any kind of like weird navigating that needs to be done from parking to the venue, absolutely include directions from parking to the entrance. I would definitely include at least a picture of the entrance so they know what door to go in.
I've done recitals at a number of different venues, and I can remember almost all of them having some questions about what door people should go in as a performer versus what door they go in to watch the show. Another step that I think is so, so important to make very clear and add pictures and or videos of in your social story is where they go after they walk in the door. So have a picture of the entrance so they know what door to use, where to go for the entrance.
But then do they have a table that they have to go to to check in? Do they have to go up or down any stairs? Is there an elevator? Is there a hallway? Is there going to be signage? Anything that you can include from entrance to where they put their stuff and park and hang out until they go on stage. Include that and remember first person narrative. So I find Miss so-and-so and she checks me in, or I walk down the hall and look for the door that says backstage.
We're letting them mentally rehearse in their mind. This is what it's going to be like to get backstage for the recital. And from here, I don't know that I necessarily need to walk you through all the rest of the steps, right? I'm sure that you have the idea and hopefully you're starting to strategize and think in your head, how can I do this? Remember, if you only have 10 minutes to put towards creating a social story, it is okay.
I give you permission, right? It does not have to be super professional, perfect quality on your very first go. Park your car, face your camera away from you and walk from your car in through the doors of the venue, into the backstage area, show around the backstage area, go to however they get into the wings, walk out on the stage. And the whole time you're doing that, just narrate what you're doing and where you're going.
Say I'm walking through the door. Now I'm going to look for miss so-and-so and she'll point me to my locker, you know, whatever the situation is for backstage. Walk onto the stage, say, now I'm going on stage from the wings.
I'm going to do my very best performing my dance with a big smile. And then I will go backstage. You walk back off stage and then don't forget to include at the end.
What do they do after the show is over? This is another area where in my experience, there can be a lot of chaos and confusion. We want everyone to be safe. We want everyone to know what the expectations are.
So do the parents come backstage and pick up their kid, or do the kids come back on stage and check out with an adult, or do the kids stay backstage, check out with the adult and get dismissed one at a time to parents, right? So you want to include that. And if there's any kind of cleanup that has to be done, at what point do they get their stuff? What are they responsible for taking with them? This is another area where you're really going to help out the parents. I make sure that I have my costume, my tights, my shoes, my hair and makeup supplies, my water bottle, my dance bag, and anything else that belongs to me before I go to see my parents or something like that.
All of these little steps are going to help prepare your students. So you have less risk of a student refusing to perform, crying on stage, freezing, any of those things. And it helps the parents, which in turn helps you reduce the chaos, confusion, bombardment of questions and things directed at you.
It's only going to help. Remember with every single step of the process to make any language that you're using, whether you are narrating or you are typing it out, very simple, very straightforward. Don't include any jargon.
Like if you're saying the wings, explain in some way what that is, right? Have a picture of the wings and say, between two curtains on the side of the stage or something like that. You don't want to use any jargon that someone that doesn't know about dance won't know. And you don't want to make assumptions about how people are going to experience this.
However, I have seen social stories that will say something like next miss so-and-so will tell me to line up with my class because it's almost time for us to go on stage and do our dance. I might feel a little bit nervous and that's okay. Okay, so you can put little prompts like that, but I would try not to over generalize.
This is something that I'm very cognizant of with my son in particular. He doesn't always get excited about the same things that I get excited about. So I try not to use phrases like, aren't you so excited that we're doing this? Or for example, if I was making a social story for him, I would not say, I'm so excited to go on stage because that might not actually be accurate to his experience of it.
Leave space for people to have their own experience, but just tell them in as simple, plain language as you possibly can, the physical aspects that they should expect throughout the process. So benefits, as I mentioned, if you do have students who are neurodivergent, they may have an elevated aversion to new environments or anything that takes them out of their comfort zone or the structure or schedule that they're used to. That's where social stories can really help.
In addition to that, if you're like me, you might be sitting here going, yeah, I don't really like when my schedule is disrupted or my structure is disrupted. Yes, this is not just for neurodivergent kids. Having very clear instructions and visual aid explaining what's going to happen at the recital or throughout the recital week potentially can help young kids who are going into their first recital and just are going to be scared, nervous, unsure of what's happening.
It can help your instructors if you have any new instructors to help them feel more comfortable and secure and be able to answer questions on your behalf about what the parents and students can expect if they get them during recital week so that you don't have to be answering every single question. Think about the parents. Yeah, with neurodivergent kids, we talk a lot about dysregulation, regulation versus dysregulation, and being in a dysregulated state is typically going to trigger some behaviors that don't lend themselves to having an organized and smooth running recital.
Okay, so with kids, we would be looking at they might start to cry, they might physically resist going into the space or going on stage, they might beg for their mommy or an adult that they feel comfortable with, they might forget their dance because they're so nervous, right? There's a lot of things that dysregulation can lead to. So having clear expectations and visual cues beforehand that they can look over multiple times with that safe person at home and say, here's what we're going to do can help reduce those. But for adults, think about your last recital experience and how the adults were behaving during late dress rehearsal nights or chaotic recital days.
I guarantee you can probably by name, name at least three adults who were highly dysregulated. These are the adults that are yelling at their kid that are rolling in late and forgot one of their kids shoes that are very angrily asking to speak with you because something isn't up to their expectations, right? So while a social story can be built with the neurodivergent community in mind, it has so many benefits for your entire studio population. And I think it has some marketing benefits as well.
So if you do a recital packet of information or you advertise, hey, we're charging a recital fee and it includes this, those types of things. Putting on that list like your fee is going to get you recital tickets, maybe a t-shirt, a program, you know, X number of seats, however you structure that. And then also put on there, a social story is included.
That's an added value to that recital fee without costing you anything. You could also advertise publicly on your social media, on your website, for example, social story available. Not everyone might see this as an added value, but as a mom of an autistic kid, I can tell you the people that are looking and paying attention to those things are going to love that.
So if you have parents of neurodivergent kids in your community who feel like they can't sign their kids up for dance class because they're too scared of the effects that dysregulation would have on their student within those overwhelming recital weeks, or they're shopping around for dance studios because their kid loves to dance, but they're not sure who's going to handle their kid's behaviors the best, or they want to introduce their kid to seeing a dance recital for the first time just to see what they think of it, if they like it, but they're worried that taking their kid to see a dance recital is going to be too overwhelming, advertising that you have a social story available will appeal to those parents. So you could potentially sell more tickets, get more enrollment, and just appeal to a new community. Now, of course, I would never recommend that you advertise these things if you're not equipped to handle them.
So obviously every kid's needs are different, and it's up to you to decide what types of behaviors and differences between people you are able to cater to within your classes. But like I said, social stories are so simple and they benefit everyone, not just folks with autism or sensory processing disabilities. So this might be a great way to start to explore that.
Okay, I think that's all I have on this topic. And like I said, if you're interested, you can do a Google search or of course, I would definitely encourage you to go in the casual dance teachers network on Facebook, click on the files tab, and I'm going to put the Carol Gray social stories template in the files because that's really going to break down the more sort of academic or clinical approach to how to create the social stories. I'm just more talking about it from the point of view of what do you include as a dance teacher when it pertains to the recital.
Definitely let me know if you've done these in the past, or if this inspired you and you're going to try one. If you want to post your own samples, that would be phenomenal. Yeah, let's talk about it as I like to say at the beginning of the episode.
Alright, so let me close out with a quote. And this one is straight from the Carol Gray document that I've referenced the social story philosophy by Carol Gray. She has this great line, it says, curiosity is confusion with a good attitude.