The day started with, "I don't want to go to school." He had a host of reasons - it is boring, it isn't fun, none of his best friends are in his class, he wants to be at home. But none of them were about his tics. Until we walked to the bus. He tried to tell me none of them knew about his tics until I reminded him that 2 kids in his class are on his bus and they each had a couple of siblings. And our neighbor who knows is on his bus and his best friend. He gave me a look like, "Dang it she figured it out."
At the bus he had 100 "what if" scenarios all with a negative spin on them. I had 100 responses all with a positive spin. He looked at me and said, "Stop being so positive!!" ... I told him I couldn't help it and that was just who I was and one day maybe he would hear the positive spin in his head and not worry about the negative. Then I asked him if he would try today to do that.
When he got off the bus he said, "worst day ever" (which he says often and I always tell him I hope this is his worst day ever because if that is the case his days are pretty good.) but when I heard it I thought all the worst. I asked him why it was such a bad day and he said, "My homework is to decorate my writing notebook and I have the most awesome Spiderman spiral notebook and I don't want to cover it up with decoration. And we had indoor recess and I didn't win playing Uno and you can only play with the people in your class." I asked, "was that it? those are what made it the worst day ever?" He responded, "Isn't that enough? That is terrible."
I explained that these were not terrible things and with thinking positively we could make changes. He told me you can't change the future. I tried not to laugh too hard when I said, "Actually Lincoln the future is the only thing you can change. You can't change the past - you can only learn from it."
I told him losing at Uno would help him become better in the future. Each time we play we learn a bit more which means we get better. So in the future if he applies what he learns in each game he will just get better and better. I also asked him if he had started writing in his writing notebook yet because if not he could keep his awesome Spiderman notebook to draw in and I have some plain spiral notebooks he could use to decorate for his writing notebook.
He was amazed. He still wasn't happy he lost in Uno because he can be quite competitive but once in the door he got one of the plain notebooks and drew an awesome picture on the front and problems were solved. He relaxed after that and until bed time there were only a couple of cursing episodes and bops.
At bedtime he said his bug bites were getting better because he didn't feel like he had to scratch so much.
I know I am looking hard for a difference and others may not see it the same way but we really do see a difference and that he is coping well with everything.
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