Scripts on anxiety

We've had three full days of school holidays so far. Bright Eyes is in a good and happy mood in general, and I've had an opportunity to really look at his scripting behaviours in a relaxing environment.

For example, I wanted the children to help me wrap Christmas presents today. I gave Max the job of writing tags while JJ got into the wrapping proper. I suggested that Bright Eyes do tags as well. Immediately he started in with some script about a film.

"You've never seen Cars 2! I've seen it three times," he said, and started to walk away.

"He's anxious," I thought, and because I wanted him to be involved, I quickly thought of some other way to redirect.

"Bright Eyes, I've got a special job for you," I said, going to the bedroom and getting the presents. The special job turned out to be taking the presents from their hiding places to the wrapping station. This suited him a lot better. 

"I'm your special helper!" he said, quite pleased with himself. He did this for a few minutes while I got everything else, but then he needed another job.

"You can be the tape boy!" I decided. I showed him how to break bits of tape off the dispenser and he sat there for at least 20 minutes giving out tape to me and to JJ as we wrapped all the presents. He was ever so pleased with himself and obviously felt very competent. And while he did the job there was no scripting at all.

After that I noticed that whenever he felt even just a tiny bit anxious about anything at all, it came out in a script. So obviously the thing to do is to maintain the relaxed atmosphere and build competence - just like RDI always says.