I remember the night I took my son to his 5th/Gth grade program at church. It seemed to be a Wednesday night like any other. There was one wrinkle. There was a sign on the church door telling the kids and their parents that the scheduled lock in.for the following Friday had been postponed. It was as if World War III had just begun. It was a change - big problem.
When the children started their group that Wednesday night, the leaders explained that very few of the adults were available that Friday because they were committed to another church event that night. Did my son say, “Oh, that makes sense. I don’t want to have it without everyone here. We’ll just do it in 2 weeks. No big deal.?” Of Course not! Why did all the anxiety, crying and accusing begin?
He was unable to see it from anyone else’s perspective but his own. It didn’t matter that there was a reasonable explanation or that it was what the leadership decided. Nothing mattered. He could not get past the fact that he thought it would go one way and it didn’t. To deal with this change, he would have to look at it from a perspective different than his own.
My pinterest boards (accessible from the button at the top of this page)has a board “thinking and you/thinking about me” with lots of ideas to teach perspective taking.
