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Cues: Use the characters from the story as surrogates for the child if you think it appropriate. “Tommy, you remind me of the Fighting Man in the Grizzly Bear story. If you were him, you would be telling yourself, ‘Jerry is always making fun of me, I should just beat him up’, is that close to what you are thinking right now?”
“Tommy what happened to the Fighting Man in the story?
Now I know you don’t want that to happen to you, so tell me is that Good or Stinky thinking? Can you tell me how you could change your thinking to not get so upset when Jerry says untrue things to you? If you can’t, maybe I can help. You could say to yourself, Jerry is just saying that to get me angry and in trouble. I will just ignore him.”
Shaping: It is important to remember that some children seen to have certain naturally occurring irrational beliefs. This is reflected in poor social skills, as well as inadequate academic performance.
It is unrealistic to expect a child with such a deficit to suddenly change and engage in appropriate coping. Therefore, you should use Shaping, that is, “reinforce change in the right direction.” Ultimately, you will want them to recognize their thinking in a situation, evaluate if it is rational (makes sense), if it is not rational, to challenge it and choose from alternative interpretations.
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