Damien: A lesson in problem solving

How does your family go about solving its problems? Some pretend they don’t have any, some like me, go for the quick solution and back onto the happy stuff.

Some live as if life is just one big problem on the way to the grave and others opt for something to pop, sniff, drink or jab to take the pain and the problem away.

But let me tell you about Jaclyn, now there’s a lady who has had her share of problems. Husband had an alcohol problem and walked in front of a bus. Jaclyn sought refuge in the church and ended up marrying Charles, the minister who was also a widower with three young children.

But Jaclyn couldn’t cope with Charles’ dogmatic style so that marriage fell through over time but Charles’ three kids begged to stay with Jaclyn so they did. Charles would have them over to his place one night during the week as his weekends were tied up with church.

In amongst all this, Jaclyn’s own son, Greg, her stalwart, and her rock left school, became an apprentice electrician and loved it. Jaclyn was so proud of him.  However as fate would have it, Greg was electrocuted on the job. Now Jaclyn struggled with three young boys, a hijacked heart, a massive mortgage and life was too much.

I had been working with her 6 year old son, Damien through the school. He was down like the rest of the family so I introduced him to Wince the worrywoo. I read the accompanying Andi Green book “Don’t feed the worry bug” and Damien agreed that they were all listening to the worry bug too much. Now the worry bug was getting bigger and bigger and their own confidence as a family was shrinking in its wake.

So we started our own little campaign to beat that worry bug, like saying “go away worry bug, you’re just trying to make everyone sad. I can beat you!” They put Wince and the worry bug on the shelf in the living room to remind them of their battle.

Just recently mum told me about their big breakthrough – when Jaclyn was at one of her lowest points in the morning and not making very good contact with her kids, Damien asked her what was wrong.

Jaclyn curtly reminded him of why she was so sad and then Damien came through with such simple kid logic. According to Jaclyn, he blurted out, “well mum, what are we going to do about it? Why don’t we each see what problems we can solve today and who solved them the best?”

 Just an innocent comment but it turned Jaclyn’s life around. Instead of avoiding problems and living in fear that there’d be more, Jaclyn led by example; they confronted their fears and worries.

Each morning over a hurried breakfast the family would rattle off what problems they expected or feared that day (eg that no-one would play with them) and then in the evening they’d talk about how they solved that problem or whether the thing they feared just didn’t happen.

In other words they confronted their fears and accepted that problems were part of life. But the secret was that most problems come to “pass” and for those problems that don’t go away, the secret was to find the ways to solve them…. and to celebrate their power over the worry bug.

So there you go, swap a problem, it’s always easier to solve someone else’s!