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Thursday, October 27, 2016

Flexible Thinking

If a child is going to grow toward an independent adult, rigid thinking must become less and replaced by cognitive flexibility. More simply, a child needs to forsake "my way or the highway" with a willingness to try a different route. This is easier to talk about than to do. A parent or caretaker must convince a child there is a better way.

An example of this happened when my son was in fourth grade. His school counselor met with him once a week. At one of these weekly meetings, she suggested that he should walk to class at the beginning of the day by himself. I had always walked him to class. In the early days, it was difficult for me to get out of his room without him running after me. Over time, this had become much easier.

My son reacted quite negatively to the counselor's suggestion. He told her, "Oh, no! I can't do it without my mom!" They discussed it for a few weeks and then a little progress was made. She suggested that she would meet him at the door each morning and walk him to the classroom and stay with him until the teacher arrived. After a few weeks, she said why don't you bring a book to read. She had a chair placed outside of the classroom. She walked him to class and left him and he read his book until his teacher came to unlock the classroom door. A few weeks later he told his school counselor that he could go to class by himself. The whole process took about four months. Little by little, my son began to believe he could independently begin his day like his peers.

A couple years later, this counselor posed an idea. She wanted him to pick a friend to visit the middle school. My son wanted nothing to do with this because no one else was going to do it. She said she would pick up lunch for them afterward at a fast food restaurant. He still wasn't "buying." She ended that discussion asking him to talk to mom about it. We talked about it just like two years before. I thought it would take less time but I was very surprised what transpired. He saw his counselor the next week. He walked into her office and said, "I want Nathan to go with me and I want Pizza Hut for lunch." She asked him why the change of heart? His answer showed his growth. "I know you and my mom are going to make me do it so I don't want to waste anymore time talking about it."

He had become more flexible in his thinking patterns and this is an area that has served him well. I would not call him a person with lots of cognitive flexibility but he has moved in that direction significantly.

Let's into ways to help your child become a flexible thinker. Next week, we'll consider how to have a profitable discussion with an individual that has a rigid thinking style.