Due to concerns from some parents about the misuse of the term "weird thoughts" by adult teachers with their students, we have revised our definition of this concept in our You Are A Social Detective book. In the next printing of the book, the concept "weird thought" will be changed to "uncomfortable thought." Please read the updated definition and note to parents and professionals using these concepts.

Uncomfortable (weird) thoughts: We have uncomfortable/weird thoughts about others and they have them about us, based on how people act, what people say and how they physically present themselves. When a person has an uncomfortable or weird thought about us, it means we did some behavior that made people take notice of us in a more negative way, just like when we take notice of others' behaviors that make us have "uncomfortable thoughts" about them.

SPECIAL NOTE ON THIS TERM: When working with students on this concept, it is bad teaching to simply tell the student others have uncomfortable or weird thoughts about them as a method of treatment. Instead the adults should use this concept to teach our students how they form "good thoughts" and "uncomfortable thoughts" about others and how this thought turns into an uncomfortable feeling about another person that impacts how they treat that person! Work with students to also recognize that people have uncomfortable/weird thoughts about everyone around them including adults, not just the student you are working with! NEVER tell a child he is "weird"; explain there is a difference between having an "uncomfortable thought" or "weird thought" and calling someone WEIRD! NEVER call a student a name thinking you are helping them; when people do this they are actually hurting a student far more than they are helping!

Last year I did a training and received a question from a parent on this important topic. Her school district has adopted the social thinking curriculum. Her son is in 3rd grade and has been participating in the social thinking groups. The staff began using the term "weird thought" with him when he would melt down, etc. He is having a hard time with this. He now thinks that the teachers all think he is weird. And he is now using that word to describe other children a school when they have difficulties. Mom has tried to have the staff use a different term and things at the school have diminished to the point that mom feels that they think she is a bad parent being picky about a minor term. My reply to her concerns went like this:

Social thinking vocabulary is never taught well in the middle of a crisis. The vocabulary is something we teach during calm times so when things get more difficult we can help a child navigate through it more thoughtfully with the concepts he has been learning about.

However, once a child is "melting down", expecting him to adjust his behavior based on the thoughts people have won't work. At that point, tools like The 5 Point Scale (Dunn-Buron and Curtis), which hooks up to Social Behavior Mapping, need to be used, as well as any method for trying to anticipate what to do to help a child re-establish calm.

This term "weird thought" needs to be retaught to him in a more neutral setting.

Let me explain the origin of this concept and you and your teams can decide how best to manage these situations.

All people have thoughts, including your kids, about everyone else. We have normal/good thoughts or "weird thoughts" about what people are doing. Our thoughts are usually related to what a person is doing that is expected or unexpected based on the social situation.

When taught well, the child is to learn to observe the thoughts he has in others. He can then start to see that he has his own thoughts...normal/good or weird/bad...about what other people are doing. Sometimes, we as teachers or parents go out of our way to help the child to observe our own behavior and then comment on his or her thoughts related to it, i.e., "I'm having a weird thought" or "nice thought".

Once a student understands that he has these thoughts then we also work with him on understanding that people have thoughts about him, weird thoughts/good thoughts, etc.

We NEVER tell a child he is weird... I never want a child to tell me I am weird. Instead we tell them that the description is simply about some specific thoughts. Typically, the way we know to modify our behavior is to help people have reasonable thoughts about us. Much of what we avoid doing socially is to make people have "weird thoughts".

I hope this explains the concept better for all of you. In this specfic situation, a child may have learned people were thinking he was weird based on the use of the term. If this situation arises, it is really important that people are explicit with the children about all the good thoughts they are having and that they don't just talk about the weird thought-type behavior.

Social behavior is negotiated in each of our brains through our social thoughts (good, bad, etc.). How people "behave" impacts our social memory. Our social memory impacts what we may want to do or not do with you tomorrow.

And finally, if your child is really reacting to the specific word "weird", then change the word and more than anything, focus on the positive while teaching the child how he can observe others more deeply. Best of luck working with your teams and in your homes on this!

© Michelle Garcia Winner 2011
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