The excerpt below is from our webinar Challenging Behaviors of Children with DMD. Thank you to psychologist Dr. Natalie Truba of Nationwide Children’s Hospital for being our guest speaker. Click here to listen to the podcast episode.
Self-Perception and Duchenne
Boys with Duchenne get the majority of their attention for things they need help with, things they’re not good at, or things that they can’t do for themselves. They’ll often hear:
Oh, be careful when you go up the stairs…
Oh, be careful… don’t rough-house too much….
Oh, let me help you with that.
Then, we expect them to have a well-developed capacity to e.g. regulate their own emotions when no one has ever really told them that they can do anything on their own. Despite that, adults are still expecting them to do this thing on their own really well.
They are constantly receiving the message “You aren’t capable.”
These boys are sensitive to attention like anybody. So, if 1) they’re getting a lot of the attention for things they can’t do, and 2) other people always do things for them, then they’re just not going to have good performance-giving abilities. They have just never really had the opportunity to be shaped.
In addition, do they even believe that they can do something? If they’re always told they can’t, then probably not.
They’re going to see themselves as someone who needs help to do most things.
One of the ways that you can approach this is by “catching” kids being good or “catching” them doing something that’s adaptive. So, use a mindset of OK, I know that I need to help you with x, y and z. But then, I’m going to go out of my way to find three things that I don’t have to help you with that I’m really impressed with.
So for every one negative or corrective comment, we’re going to give two or three positive comments – even little things.
For example, if they’re sitting and playing quietly, instead of leaving them alone and taking some respite time, just share with them, “I’m so impressed at how creative you are. You’re just really creative and you can play by yourself. I’m so proud of you.”
Those types of things let them know that they have these abilities, that they can do things on their own, that you see them as capable and that it’s impressive. Adding those positives in frequently can really help to offset all those negatives that they hear daily.
In addition, highlighting the positives helps you stay in touch with their mood or their window of tolerance. This will help you better understand their pattern of escalation when those moods abruptly change.
More To Consider…