This morning therapy with Younger Boy was interesting.
We went through all of the possible reasons why Younger Boy doesn't sleep at night. Here it is...he wants to be sneaky and thinks I am mean for making him go to bed. There you have it.
Therapist C asked him why he does it. No answer. He sat there and thought about it, but no answer.
He was mad at her for making him admit the truth. Really mad.
We went into the lobby before seeing Therapist D and he started to cry. I am still not certain if they were tears of frustration or guilt or anger. Tears nonetheless.
In between sessions they always theorize what to work on during the second session. Today they decided we needed to have him do the thinking. Their theory is that he is completely unaware of his own thoughts and feelings. They suspect he is too busy being on auto-pilot and hyper-vigilant trying to figure out what other people are thinking or what they want him to say.
So in order to keep him in the present Therapist D played catch with him for about five minutes and then he spent five minutes thinking about the answer to the following two questions. What do I not like about going to bed? What makes it fun to stay up?
He had NOTHING. We did this same thing FOUR TIMES. We told him there are no wrong answers. Therapist D told him her answer. Therapist P told him her answer. I told him mine. We told him we knew our reasons would be different than his reasons.
He couldn't come up with ANYTHING.
So...we discussed bedtime. At the recommendation of the therapy team he is responsible for himself at bedtime. He knows that he is to be there by 9PM after showering. He knows that the only regular acceptable reason to be out of your bed after that is to use the restroom. He has one week. During that week I am not to comment on bedtime. Just note the bedtime for his therapy team.
They told him after our session next week if he hasn't managed it then we would come up with a plan where I would monitor him until he was sleeping and that he probably wouldn't like it.
Honestly I am not really surprised at this outcome. It has always been in the back of my mind.
I'm ready to try nearly anything.
We went through all of the possible reasons why Younger Boy doesn't sleep at night. Here it is...he wants to be sneaky and thinks I am mean for making him go to bed. There you have it.
Therapist C asked him why he does it. No answer. He sat there and thought about it, but no answer.
He was mad at her for making him admit the truth. Really mad.
We went into the lobby before seeing Therapist D and he started to cry. I am still not certain if they were tears of frustration or guilt or anger. Tears nonetheless.
In between sessions they always theorize what to work on during the second session. Today they decided we needed to have him do the thinking. Their theory is that he is completely unaware of his own thoughts and feelings. They suspect he is too busy being on auto-pilot and hyper-vigilant trying to figure out what other people are thinking or what they want him to say.
So in order to keep him in the present Therapist D played catch with him for about five minutes and then he spent five minutes thinking about the answer to the following two questions. What do I not like about going to bed? What makes it fun to stay up?
He had NOTHING. We did this same thing FOUR TIMES. We told him there are no wrong answers. Therapist D told him her answer. Therapist P told him her answer. I told him mine. We told him we knew our reasons would be different than his reasons.
He couldn't come up with ANYTHING.
So...we discussed bedtime. At the recommendation of the therapy team he is responsible for himself at bedtime. He knows that he is to be there by 9PM after showering. He knows that the only regular acceptable reason to be out of your bed after that is to use the restroom. He has one week. During that week I am not to comment on bedtime. Just note the bedtime for his therapy team.
They told him after our session next week if he hasn't managed it then we would come up with a plan where I would monitor him until he was sleeping and that he probably wouldn't like it.
Honestly I am not really surprised at this outcome. It has always been in the back of my mind.
I'm ready to try nearly anything.
Posts
Post a Comment