Reply to "I have my own way of doing things"

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Reply to ""I have my own way of doing things""

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[quote=Anonymous]I am a nanny who has worked with several kids with ADHD or on the spectrum and I definitely think he needs the therapy!

It’s great that he has you to share these strategies and ideas with him, but there are three problems with you being his only source of strategies:

1) He is not you—some strategies that worked for you won’t work for him, or he may have different goals for himself than you do.  So something that fulfilled your own needs and goals at his age may not tick that same box for him.

2) His world is not your world—I think a really important general principle with these kinds of kids is that the disorder or diagnosis or problem isn’t something wrong with the kid, it is simply a way of describing the mismatch between how the kid functions and how the world expects/demands he function.  So you have to remember that not only are the tools that work for you as an adult probably not going to match his needs as a child, but also the tools you used as a child may not match the social, technological, etc., environment he is living in as a child today.

3) You loom too large.  You are right that your love for him and your knowledge of him helps in a lot of ways, but you are also one of the most important people in his life.  Your opinions, your communication style, your way or encouraging him are all weighed down with the maximum emotional and psychological baggage!  Having a therapist who is an objective professional tell him that something needs to change or congratulate him and try to build his confidence in an area hits differently than his DAD!  When you give negative feedback, it is more emotional.  When you give praise, he knows it comes from someone who loves him deeply (and therefore he might believe it less).  Just the fact of that relationship makes certain things hard.  So to make yourself the ONLY person in that role will mean that certain messages may never land.  even if you said exactly what he needed to hear, he may not be able to absorb it from you[/quote]

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