Awesome day yesterday.
David put in for and was accepted to be a member of the student council at his school.
He met all of the expectations in his classroom.
We had dinner last night without complaint or reservations.
We did some outdoor stuff last night without complaint or reservation.
Then bedtime happened.
I don’t know what it is, but when we have back to back good days, and sometimes it doesn’t even take that much, things fall apart.
I ended up having David sit on the couch with me because he and I were both worried about the way things were going. He had an episode where nothing was right, not the snack that he wanted, not the drink that he has when he takes his bedtime medicines. Everything was going south quickly.
We talked about what was going on with him while we sat there. He said student council. He claims that he went out for it because a friend dared him to. Now he wants to give it up because it will be too much work to keep it going. So many excuses. “I am not good enough”. Was the most telling one.
I told him he had to give it six weeks. If on November 1, he thought it was still too much work, then we would talk about it.
I explained that people were counting on him to do the job that he volunteered for, and that those people need his voice to share their concerns and needs with the school administrators.
He is worried that being a leader means people will see him as a geek or a nerd.
I explained that this wasn’t the case. I talked about the qualities of a leader.
- Decision making
- Tenacity
- Confidence
- Likability
- Voice
In the end, I don’t know if it was his medicine kicking in, or if I was finally getting through to him, but he was fine. And we escaped a major blowout that may have resulted in a call out of the Sheriff Department.