Brett’s mom brought him in for sessions to help with anger management. We did some exercises together, then wanted to test out that temper of his. Mom tried some phrases that usually got him mad, but he just smiled at her. “Actually Mom,” he said, “I don’t think I could get mad right now.”
Three weeks later, she wrote:
“Things are going very well. Brett has made many changes:
His grades have steadily improved since we saw you;
He does not seek out conflict any more;
when there is a conflict, he does not draw it out into a big day long conflict, he gets over it, apologizes, hugs it out;
he is happier;
he shows compassion for others (he always had it, just didn’t show it)
he thinks about others more–helps his brother without being asked;
he is sooo loving now–walks up to me to give me hugs frequently; and
he has not gotten in any trouble at school since we have seen you.”
But wait! There’s more!
She continues: “There are nights he doesn’t want to do the exercises and we keep it brief, but we are doing them 5-6x per week. Our 13 y/o son was stressed out a couple of weeks ago and he said he wanted to do them with us–he said after doing them, “I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do these, they are so relaxing!!” He has since done them with us most nights. He has never had any attention problems and is in the gifted program, never been in any trouble at school, but even he has changed…he went from being very closed and I had to pull all info from him and ask a lot of questions; now he has talked to me more in the past week about meaningful things than he has the rest of the school year!“
Three months later, Brett’s mom happily reported that Brett no longer needs his medication for ADHD.