Are you confused or frustrated with your child's ability to problem solve? "It's not that hard", you may think. It you have a child who lives in the black and white world and you live in a world with lots of shades of color. Cognitive inflexible children are rigid thinkers. This can cause problems when something doesn't go like your child expects. As a parent, you may know that this change is small and it will have little effect in the long term. This is not how the inflexible thinker sees it. He cannot shift to deal with the situation in a slightly different manner.
Another issue that comes up with this kind of thinker revolves around what to do or how to react with a change. I can remember my son calling me from school when their was a change in the hot lunch offerings. He told me that I needed to bring him lunch because it WAS NOT tacos Like I (PROMISED). He was close to meltdown. I asked Jim what the new menu choice was and he told me that it was hotdog and he hated school hotdogs. I asked him to tell me everything on the menu. As I talked to him about it, he realized he could eat the bun, carrots and ranch, peaches, brownie and chocolate milk. I had to help him see another solution than the one that he had. This is a very hard process and takes a lot of time with this kind of thinking.
Meltdowns often occur with the child who is an inflexible thinker. He doesn't know how to make sense of the situation so he has an emotional response to stop "the out of control feelings" he has. Over the next few weeks, the posts on Tuesday will tackle how to help a child move from meltdown to being a problem solver. I would love to hear from many. What are the struggles you face helping a child who struggles solving problems?
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