Successful

I’ve been writing down a lot of the negatives and feel like I should focus on a positive for once.  As I discussed failure with my therapist she pointed out one of my successes.   It was when we were discussing my children and the fallout they would have from living with an addict.  I could clearly see the trauma behavior in my 18 year old and my 11 year old but my 13 year old has seemed to mellow out and jokes and laughs and seems to have avoided it so far.  But it has to be there.   And I finally saw a glimpse of it.

He has a piano recital coming up and his teacher mentioned she could tell the boys hadn’t been practicing.  So I decided to help.  He started playing and he was trying to play the whole thing through from beginning to end, over and over, and struggling.  So I stopped him and suggested he just play the first two measures and once he could play those three times without messing up he could move on to the next two measures.  This progressed for a while.  My goal was to have him only work on the first two lines and then he could work on the last two the next day (unfortunately I didn’t share my plan with him).    He was doing pretty well and getting better. 

Until the last two measures.  He messed up a couple of times and I went over to see if I could help him and offer some encouraging words.  He stood up, pushed me out of the way, yelled “leave me alone” and ran up the stairs.   Where was my unflappable laughing 13 year old?  I didn’t immediately chase him.  I waited about 5 minutes and then went in search of him.   He was hiding in my closet and was teary eyed.  I stood away from the closet giving him the opportunity to hide his face (I think he was embarrassed to be crying) and talked to him in a quiet voice.  I explained what my plan was and that by encouraging him to keep playing I hadn’t meant to imply that he was failing.  I told him I was trying to teach him how to break down a piece into more manageable parts that wouldn’t be so overwhelming and that I was pleased with the progress he had made and that I didn’t want him to feel like a failure because I didn’t think he was.   And then I walked away. 

He came down about ten minutes later and continued to practice until he got to the end of the first three lines.  I gave him a hug and told him I was proud of him for not giving up when he got frustrated and discouraged. 

I didn’t fail.  I gave him space, I didn’t get mad, I didn’t try to shame him, I recognized his emotions,  I explained my intentions to him, and then I let him make his own decisions about his behavior and gave him positive reinforcement and love.

(And I’m going to keep an eye out for those times he feels like a failure or shame.   Those are the scary emotions that I don’t want him internalizing).