Going Shopping Social Story

Since coming to Buenos Aires, I have had to take the kids shopping on my own a lot more. This is a new experience for us because, in Tennessee, my daughter goes to school and my son naps at home where my husband works, or I can take my son to my parents house or I have the luxury of ordering groceries. In Argentina, though, it's really hard for us to get stuff delivered to us for a large variety of reasons and I don't have the added support. I still have to get things done so I've had to take the kids out more. We're been going to the grocery store, clothes and toy shops, bakeries, and anywhere else we need to. Sometimes it's just to give us something to do, but either way they're just in stores more. I noticed it was really hard for my daughter, and despite thinking that I had sufficiently prepared my seven year old autistic daughter to go shopping, she was still having a difficult time. So I wrote a social story especially for her about going shopping.

Going Shopping Social Story | Getting the Story Ready

I started writing these social stories a few years ago because when my daughter was first diagnosed. I noticed so many social stories were about the child's behavior impacted other people. So, if you do X other people are going to feel Y, therefore you shouldn't do it. Or if you do Y then other people are going to think X about you and therefore you shouldn't do it. None of them were supportive or affirming or said it's okay to have a hard time and here are tools you can do to help with this hard time. In short, embracing their unique personality instead of forcing you to be neurotypical. Like all of my other social stories, I made sure this is a neuro-affirming and inclusive social story.

For example, my seven year old is about the size of a ten year old. She's very tall and I often put her in a grocery cart in the states because it is less overwhelming for her and I can feel confident knowing she's not going to run off. I often get weird looks, but I absolutely do not care because that's an accommodation she needs, and it helps her get through the store, and have a better experience. Also, when I say they're inclusive, I try to make the stories accessible to all races, ethnicities, and disabilities so that every person is represented. I like to make sure every page is different. Every child on every page of the story is different to help it be more relatable. I don't use the same child throughout each story for the most part just to give it some variety There are a few of my social stories that I do do that with but that's for a very specific reason.

I'm going to walk you through how I created this social story and some of the things that I do behind the scenes. I originally bought the art for all of my social stories through Etsy almost all exclusively from artists in Ukraine. I bought the rights to their art, along with licenses to be able to sell it. Then in some cases, depending on the story, I edit and combine people and situations. The shopping social story has a bit more detailed images than most of my social stories because I wanted to depict different kinds of scenarios that children would be experiencing to give an idea of what to expect. There is a plant store, a clothing store, a candy store, a home goods store, a lamp store, and a few others.

Usually when I print these out, I create a book with them, but since we're in Argentina I had to improvise a little bit. Originally, I was just going to staple the book, but I went to one of the local stores and I found a folder that has plastic sheets in it. I eventually was able to put the pages inside the folders back to back so when you flip to the page you could see the other. This was nice because I didn't have to cut or glue anything like I usually do. Unfortunately, there was an issue with printing one of the pages. The printer we have here decided that it didn't want to print the cabinet on the candy store page nicely, but all the other pages printed fine. Then I used clear packing tape to secure the title page to the front of the book. It isn't as smooth as I would like, but it's good enough. I will likely make a few more social stories in this format before we leave Argentina.

Hopefully this is helpful for anyone who doesn't have the typical resources. You can find this new social story and any of my other social stories in my Shop for just $5 each.