DEALING WITH KIDS' SETBACKS
By Dan Coulter

Some days it just seems all too much. You get a call from the school
about an incident with your son. Or your daughter comes home defiant and
tearful.  And whatever you do seems like the wrong thing.

Well, it's probably not. The right thing to do isn't always the
perfect thing. Or rather, you don't need to find the perfect solution to do
something that helps. If you're like most parents (and by most
parents, I mean, me) you don't routinely hit the ball out of the park. There's a
fair amount of trial and error involved.

And it's even more of a challenge as your child gets older. We usually
do too much or too little. But it helps when you start to understand that
this is the way it works. Raising children, and especially children with
special needs, is a constant state of discovering what - and how much -- to do.
For one thing, you never know how much independence they can handle until
you give them too much.

It's sort of like being in a sailboat. Whatever your destination,
you're constantly dealing with winds trying to blow you off course. You often
have to tack back and forth, not always able to steer exactly toward your
goal, but constantly getting closer, until you reach it.

Just as we can't usually sail directly to our goals, we often can't
help our kids solve problems immediately. But if we keep providing course
corrections and don't get discouraged, we can help them make steady
progress.

Of course, sometimes it's hard not to get discouraged. And sometimes
we're too close to an event to see the better courses of action. So we need to
be careful about making decisions affecting the future in a fury of
frustration. "We're never going to a fast food restaurant again!" or
"I'm going to call that child's mother and give her a piece of my mind!"
Radical solutions can sometimes do more harm as good.

Better to wait and look at the problem with the perspective a little
time can give, even if it's only an hour or a day. And it always helps to
step outside the problem and look at it objectively. What caused the
problem? What can you or your child do differently?

If you need to convince your child to do something different, what
incentives can you come up with? Focus on how he can get something he
wants if he takes a certain course of action. And success is an amazing
teacher.  If a child tries something and it works, she'll almost always put it in
her bag of tricks.

In my experience, negative consequences tend to shut down kids' minds.
But even stubborn minds tend to seek out pleasure and the prospect of
positive results. Be careful of getting dragged down into a contest of wills.
"Because I say so," is not a convincing argument. And kids often find
creative ways around obeying ultimatums. You've got to be the parent.
You may not be smarter than your kids (I know this first-hand), but you
have more experience. And you have a secret weapon. You love them even
when they lose control.

They may be overwhelmed by the moment and frozen in injustice or
disappointment or hopelessness. But adults tend to understand that
there are few things more powerful than knowing someone cares about you and
believes in you no matter what. Just listening to their frustration or
anger can help defuse it. Have you ever seen your child so upset that
he didn't want anyone suggesting solutions? You just don't UNDERSTAND!
It's an insult to suggest there was anything else he could have done! It
was just UNFAIR!

By staying calm, you can help the storm pass. You can be the safe
haven.  You can repair the torn sails and restock the ship and supply fresh
navigation charts. And give your child the confidence to try again.

Belief is a powerful force. If you convince your daughter she can
succeed,  her chances of reaching a goal go up dramatically. Sometimes, belief
is everything.

My wife has an uncle (Uncle William) who had a setback as a high school
junior. When he got his report card at the year's end, it said he'd
flunked -- and would have to repeat the 11th grade. William anxiously
had a friend take the report card to his mother while he went to his
after-school job delivering telegrams. When he got home, he found his mother had
fixed him his favorite dinner, fried chicken, and baked him a big apple pie.
And she didn't say a word about his report card that night. The next day,
they sat down together and came up with a plan. In spite of being scared,
William went alone to the school and negotiated an agreement that he
could go on to the 12th grade with his class if he retook some key courses in
summer school and passed. He did just that. And he went on to
succeed in college and graduate school. Today, Uncle William is a respected
minister and community leader.

Love and understanding can see you through the toughest times and give
your kids a lifelong example to follow.

So, the next time your child has a setback, you have an opportunity.
You can understand that setbacks are not an interruption of the process,
they're part of the process. However you decide to help, it can be the right
thing even if it's not the perfect thing.

And you can't go wrong with apple pie.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dan Coulter is the producer of the video, "MANNERS
FOR THE REAL WORLD: Basic Social Skills," and a series of videos for people
with Asperger Syndrome and similar special needs. You can find more
articles on his website at: www.coultervideo.com.

Copyright 2004 Dan Coulter All Rights Reserved Used By Permission