I’ve done a social story for Beth involving a girl called Bronte who is in the same situation as Beth. I’m going to do a series of them as other issues arise. I thought I’d go with the B theme, we have Beth, Bill and Bridie. Bronte would have been my third girl’s name if I had had one! It also goes with Beth’s Powerpuff Girls theme, Buttercup, Blossom and Bubbles if I remember correctly. Here’s the first one :
Once upon a time there was a little girl called Bronte. Well
she wasn’t that little really, Bronte was 12 years old. The thing was that
Bronte was scared of growing up. She was nearly finished at her Primary School
and she was feeling a bit worried about going to high school.
Bronte had had a lot of fun at her primary school. She had
lots of friends but the older she got the more confusing friendships became.
The girls were starting to have just one or two friends at a time and they
often liked hanging around with the boys more than each other. Bronte didn’t
understand the way they wanted to play sometimes so she wandered around a lot
by herself.
Sometimes kids would be mean to Bronte. They would tell her
fibs like that other kids didn’t like her or that she didn’t have any friends.
This hurt Bronte’s feelings and even though she didn’t know whether to believe
them or not she thought that being by herself was easier. This made her friends
sad. They really liked Bronte and didn’t understand why she didn’t want to play
with them anymore.
Sometimes noises scared Bronte. Once in the classroom there
was a funny noise and it startled Bronte. She also hated the noise that the
chairs made when being taken down from the table or being put back up. Soon
Bronte was scared to even go into the classroom.
Everything was changing. The girls started getting boobs and
their periods. The boys started getting deeper voices and everybody started
getting pimply spots on their faces. Bronte just wanted things to stay the same.
One day Bronte met a girl who was just like her. Her name
was Jenny. Jenny was a few years older than Bronte. Jenny said that just
because Bronte had her period and was finishing grade 6 it didn’t mean that she
would be a grown up. She still had years and years until that happened. Jenny
had been scared too but she had talked to her mum and her teachers about her
fears and they had reassured her that everything would be ok. She said that she
had hated becoming a teenager and didn’t like all the things happening to her
body, it made her feel yucky. Soon though she saw that she could still have fun
with her friends and do all the things that she used to do. Just because she
was getting older didn’t mean that she was a grown up. She still saw her
friends from Primary School sometimes too.
Bronte decided that Jenny was right. She didn’t want to
spoil the rest of her primary school years worrying about things. She started
playing with her friends again and they were so happy! They had worried that
Bronte didn’t like them anymore. Bronte decided that the other kids were wrong,
people did like her still! Â She even
decided to try to go back into the classroom. Guess what? Bronte didn’t even
remember what it was that had scared her in the first place! Bronte realised
that she didn’t have to be a grown up but that she had to try really hard not
to be so scared of things anymore. When she tried she realised that the things
she worried about really weren’t that bad after all. She remembered how she
used to be scared of a character on the TV – now she wanted to watch him all
the time! She sure wasn’t scared  of him anymore.
Bronte ended up really enjoying her last two weeks at
Primary School. She had her graduation where she looked like a fairy princess,
and she sang her heart out at the Christmas Carols. When she started to get
worried she just remembered what Jenny had talked to her about. Sometimes she
spoke with her Mum about her fears. Soon she realised that everything was going
to be ok.
