My Day Is Ruined: A Story Teaching Flexible Thinking (Executive Function)

I bought this book for my kids, as well as my classroom. It is a wonderful teaching tool for social emotional skills. It is well written and has a great guide for adults to help them to be able to teach "flexible thinking" skills. It is a great reminder for the adults too to be adaptable.

Helpful book! I bought this for helping my 11 year old son (who does not have special needs but has a hard time accepting disappointments gracefully). We took notes and posted them in his room to help give him tips for coping with disappointment: 1) acknowledge your feelings (we added this); 2) take a deep breath 3) realize that some things are out of your control; 4) make a new plan; 5) accept the change

This book really clicked with my five year old!! It helps that he frequently exclaimed "MY DAY IS RUINED" before I saw and purchased this book so he could immediately relate. The four steps are easy to remember and we have successfully diffused a couple of screaming fits using them together which was both surprising and amazing. For him to have a success quickly diffusing a fit is HUGE. He is five but having some teaching experience myself I could definitely see older kids being able to relate to this book too. Braden's math problem "solution" was hilariously realistic! Love it and will be purchasing more Braden books soon! (My only complaint is the condition the book arrived I because it was only sent in bubble wrap, but I certainly will not be deducting stars for that!)

This book actually works. After I read it to my 6 year old a few times an opportunity came around to remind him to remember his “flexible thinking” skills, and by some miracle it worked and we avoided a meltdown. My 8 year old likes the book too. This is a good series overall and this particular book is one of my favorites.

This book is perfect for our 7 year old, as well as for my classes of prekindergarteners. We will be purchasing more Bryan Smith books. They are easy to follow and offer support for tricky topics!

Overall this is a useful book and one that my kids have enjoyed with me. I do think it suffers from some over-specificity, where the character is a boy, is a boy who plays sports, is a boy who has a certain type of school experience... These are not bad things but I would have given this a full 5 stars if there was more open-ended, or if more culturally-inclusive experiences were used as examples where flexible thinking could apply - simply because it would have been more relevant to more people as such.

I work with kids who get "stuck" sometimes, including some with autism. This is not a cure- all, and it still takes some creativity from parents to deal with everything that goes wrong from a kid's perspective. But it is relatable, and encouraging, for both kids and adults.

Perfect lesson for my son who is Asperghers and has difficulty with socialization at school. This has really helped him understand how to make good choices to avoid bad days at school. Great buy for any child who has poor impulse control. Nice packaging. Good service.

These books look great but too many words for my particular cohort so can't properly review. Definitely worth a look for other children.

Bought this for my 9 year old son. We’ve been working through the scenarios, one at a time. The message is hitting home!

Great book for reinforcing how to move forward when things don’t go your way

gave it to one of my kids!

Great story. Kept our son engaged.