I met with a mum this week who is feeling increasingly worried, frustrated and overwhelmed at her seven year old child’s behaviour. He is finding it really hard, for a variety of reasons to leave her and come in to school in the morning. He now has a routine where he runs off before they get to his class and she ends up literally chasing him around the playground. I worked with his class teacher and we set up a chart for home and school last week and mum has agreed to work with us to help him. Mum was feeling very frustrated today as he had only managed to come in to school with no fuss for two of the five days since i saw her last week. I thought this was very positive and pointed out to her that although it was only twice, it was two more than he had achieved on any of the other weeks.
I compared this to when we as adults may want to change a behaviour such as not eating chocolate or drinking wine and how hard it can be for us to maintain it. How often have any of us started a week full of good intentions and two or three days later reached for a chocolate bar or poured a glass of wine, often full of justifications to ourselves and sometimes others as to why we are doing it.
So next time we are feeling exasperated at a child who is trying but still finding it hard to change their behaviour, lets reflect on how hard we find this to do as adults and try and have more patience and understanding with them.