You can act out an experience that is coming up (doctor, school, church social).
Show him what he should do in the situation. Teach him what is expected – before he is actually in the situation. For example how to shake hands and look people in the eyes and what to say when he meets someone new.
If your child is excited about an upcoming event, have fun imagining all the wonderful things about it, but don’t overdo how much you talk about it and don’t make it sound “perfect.”
Sometimes events can’t possibly live up to our dream because we have created unrealistic, perfect pictures in our minds about what something (vacation, sports outing, carnival, etc.) will be like, and we have talked way too much about it for way too long ahead of time.
If we overdo the dream too much, what can happen is that our child can end up feeling disappointed at the actual event, and no one, including our child, really understands why. If experiences like this happen over and over again, a person can spend a lifetime searching for the “perfect” experience – which of course never happens.
Inspired by IF I CROSSED THE ROAD by Stephen Kroninger
Picture Book Parenting 