If I had a dollar for every time I heard myself say, “nice hands!” I could retire now. Anyone else feel that way sometimes?? Teaching social skills to kids is so important and one very concrete area of social skills is having nice hands.
One difficulty is that we don’t want to ignore something hurtful that a student does to another student because the child on the receiving end may feel that their feelings are not being acknowledged. So planned ignoring / extinction is not possible at those times. (see point #5 for times it is possible) However, I have some other ideas for you.
Remember that understanding the function of the behavior is key! Then when you know the function, here are some strategies to deal with hurtful hands.
1. Positive practice
If a student hits another student, you don’t want to ignore it because the “victim” will feel that you are not in their corner and they will not feel safe. You can have the “hitter” practice doing something better, like a hi five. Have them do it 3-5 times, then they will be tired of it that positive practice!
2. Social skills group game
Make up a simple game practicing nice hands. (This is me making up a game right now:) Play some music and tell the students when the music stops they need to shake hands with a partner. Then play music again and next time they need to give a high five when the music stops.
3. Practicing with songs
Here are some songs where students get to practice shaking hands, hi five-ing, hugging, etc. I love these songs!
- Dr Jean – Everybody Shake a Hand
- Dr. Jean – Hello Friends
- Frog Street Press – My School Family
- Maple Leaf Learning – Let’s Shake Hands
4. Differential reinforcement of other behavior
For a child that really has trouble with this, reinforce any behavior other than “not nice hands.” Praise them for every thing they do for a minute. “Good sitting down. Nice quiet hands. I like how you’re looking at the book.” Then, they will be more likely to continue that behavior.
5. Extinction / planned ignoring — times when you can use this
If the function of the behavior is attention-seeking and the target (victim) of the behavior is you, you can put the behavior on extinction: do not acknowledge it at all. That means, look away, turn away, keep your mouth closed, move away. However, I’m not advocating letting yourself get beat up. You know your own limits.
6. Explicit teaching of social skills
I have two products which will help with explicit teaching of “nice hands.”
The first is a cut-and-paste sorting activity. With this activity you go one by one through the pictures and explain why the action is nice or not nice–i.e., it hurts or it makes someone sad.
The second is a sorting activity on Boom Learning. This is basically the same thing as above, but in digital activity form!
I hope some of these suggestions help! Let me know in the comments what other strategies you use!
