Q: When encountering students who show signs of social difficulties, how can teachers leverage on the Youth-Theory of Mind (Y-ToM) tool to support their students and foster positive teacher-student relationships?
You can use the Y-ToM to gauge the overall social difficulties or to look at specific categories such as (1) lie; (2) white lie; (3) misunderstanding; (4) double bluff; (5) figure of speech; (6) sarcasm; and (7) persuasion in the Y-ToM to see which area to focus on. However, it is important to first gauge whether the student does not know how to respond in such social situations or does not want to behave accordingly in such social situations. The Y-ToM will be helpful if it is the former and we can teach the appropriate social responses in those social situations. However, you may need more of behavioural management strategies (e.g., reward system) if it is more of the latter where the student knows what to do but does not want to do it.
