Superflex and Perspective Taking

Since I spend so much time navigating social conflicts with my students, as well as behavioral challenges, I also spend a lot of proactive time teaching about perspective taking. Now perspective taking, being able to put yourself in someone else's position and think from their point of view is a very challenging skill, even for adults! You have to be able to read someone's facial expression, body language, and the contextual clues to try and figure what they may be thinking and feeling. And even more challenging, you have to step outside of your own thoughts and feelings about the situation...you have to step outside YOURSELF, which is really hard to do.

In teaching about perspective thinking and social thinking, I primarily use the Superflex Social Thinking curriculum.

My groups do lots of activities and role plays around the notion of Superflex, a superhero who helps show people how to think about other people, and his Team of Unthinkables--the "villains" who are trying to get you to only think about yourself and your own ideas. This hero and villain framework really connects with my kids across multiple grade levels and is an awesome way to developmentally frame the idea of perspective taking.

Since we talk a lot about these villains "invading our brain" when the students are having a hard time in different areas, I wanted to pass along the list of villains and their traits to parents as well. The kids really respond well to this language. For example, if a student is continuing to play after the teacher has asked multiple times for him to begin cleaning up, she may then say, "It seems like Rock Brain may be trying to invade your brain...what would Superflex do?" Rock brain is a villain who makes people "get stuck on their own ideas" and not be flexible thinkers. Generally the students will remember the strategies that we have discussed and will follow the direction saying, "Superflex would say that it's time to clean up now and maybe there will be more time to play later."

If you are interested, you can find out more about Superflex as well as the rest of the Social Thinking curriculum (there are many books and activities) here.