Building Social Skills with Board Games: In-Person Group for Grades 5-8
With Sam Elder, AMFT
When:
Wednesdays, 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
June 5 - 26, 2024
Week 1: Your gaming mindset and personality. Exploring your ADHD brain.
Week 2: Self-awareness building. Impulse control and emotional management
Week 3: Exploring the connection between board game skills and academic skills.
Week 4: Executive functioning practice through game strategy.
Where:
In Person at the Mountain View Hallowell Todaro ADHD Center
298 San Antonio Rd Ste 100, Mountain View, CA 94040
Who:
All 5th through 8th graders are welcome to attend.
Cost:
$180 for 4 sessions
About the Group
In this group, we’ll use board games to explore ADHD traits in a group setting, focusing on building social skills and reducing isolation, and learning coping skills related to ADHD challenges, such as impulse control.
In each session, we’ll engage participants in more complex thinking, planning and collaboration. We’ll begin with a discussion about a particular skill to focus on during the game, such as mindfulness about language and facial expressions or planning strategies, and how they relate to executive functioning in school and other interests.
Over the course of the sessions, participants will engage in skill-building and receive education from therapeutic models such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and strength-based approaches for ADHD.
Participants learn more about their ADHD brains while having fun in a supportive group setting. Please join us!
Registration for this group is now closed.
Sam Elder, AMFT
About Sam
Sam has had a compelling journey to arrive at his position helping children and adolescents with ADHD. Suffering from undiagnosed ADHD as a child, Sam struggled in school but made it to Foothill College and transfered to Capella University where he studied Psychology. While working full-time at Stanford Hospital as an administrative assistant, Sam was finally diagnosed and treated in his early twenties. Sam then decided to pursue his goal of becoming a therapist. He graduated from Palo Alto University with a Master’s degree in clinical counseling with an emphasis in marriage, child and family therapy. Since 2020, Sam has helped a large caseload of children, young adults, and adults overcome with ADHD overcome the barriers that he faced himself.
Sam has done individual and group therapy and coaching primarily with elementary and middle school students. He loves motivating students through creative approaches, e.g. using an individual’s interest in Minecraft to assist students with Executive Function. Sam is also training to provide Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, where he coaches parents working with their children while observing through a one way mirror.