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Coping with Frustration Hello. My son has bipolar disorder. He is now pretty stable on his current medication combo and has been for several months. He still, however, has great difficulty dealing with unexpected situations. If it's a good surprise like going to the park, he's generally ok with it. If any frustration is involved, however, he tends to protest loudly/scream, sulk, sometimes give me the silent treatment, refuse to cooperate with whatever needs to be done at the moment (i.e refusing to put shoes on or to get up to go to grocery store when we are down to the last stitch of food in the house and must go tonight). Time seems to help him cope if we have a spare 30-60 min for me to allow him to cool down and come around. Sometimes, however, that's just not possible. What suggestions can you share for helping him to learn some more functional/appropriate skills for expressing and dealing with his frustration in such situations? (FYI, he is a pre-teen.) Thanks.
I am glad to hear your son is (relatively) stable, that is an excellent accomplishment! In terms of building frustration tolerance, in our book “Raising a Moody Child: How to Cope with Depression and Bipolar Disorder”, we discuss how kids can build Tool Kits to deal with everyday frustrations. In addition to doing that, you might work with your son to, when frustrated, visualize a stop sign, take 10 big belly breaths (the deep, from the bottom of the lungs kind), then think about what to use from his Tool Kit. When you catch him doing it, heap on the praise! Dr. Fristad |
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