One of my favorite parts of my job is when I learned something from one of my clients. That happened today and I wanted to share. I work with a couple who have a super hyperactive elementary school kid who is somewhat oppositional. This kid is smart and he loves to argue. In fact, a mother two ago he paused mid argument with mom to say, “this is fun.” I think that tells you a lot about what’s going on inside this kid’s brain he’s clearly getting a dopamine rush from the argument.
So mom had the brilliant idea to feed this part of his personality in a more constructive way that caused less conflict. She started coming up with random topics to “litigate” that weren’t about daily life or functioning. They were just for fun. Like, what are better, dragons or unicorns? It’s unclear if there’s any long-term mitigation of the oppositional behavior. But it certainly not getting worse according to the parents. And it gives them an opportunity to, “celebrate this part of him instead of looking at it as a negative.” It gives him an opportunity to interact about something fun rather than something that is inherently contentious. I think this is absolutely brilliant parenting. I wanted to share the actual technique, but also spotlight brilliant and wonderful this outside the box parenting is.
Not that any kid comes with an instruction manual… Wait a minute. They might not come with it. But how many books have been written about parenting? Some good. Some great. Some bad. Some insane. But if you have the wherewithal to filter out the bad stuff, there’s a lot of good information about how to raise healthy, happy kids who will eventually be able to pay their own rent. But for those of us raising wildly neurodivergent and/or mentally ill kids, there really isn’t a playbook. It’s like opening your present on Christmas morning and there’s just a whole bunch of pieces. Some of them are in imperial. Some of them are metric. None of them seem to fit according to what you expect. But you have no choice but to make the best of it.
So take this parent’s lead and be flexible, creative, and outside the box. Our kids aren’t standard issue. So our parenting can’t be either. And that’s OK.