Captain Underpants to the Rescue

Recently, my son has had several instances where his impulsivity and overall 8 year old was has gotten the best of him while leading to poor decision making. Needless to say we've had a lot of conversations this week about behavior. So his recent poor decision came in the form of his spelling a curse word (which I later found out he had learned from another kid) out loud in front of peers; it was only a matter of time, right? So after a stern talking to, I took a breath to figure out what to do next. It was there in the calm of my room that I saw Bryan Smith's book What Were You Thinking: A Story about Learning to Control Your Impulses. Perfect and timely. I invited my son in to read the book to me. Afterwards, we discussed the steps they write about in the book to take to help a the main character think before saying or doing some things. My son understood the steps and we applied them to past situations to see how using those steps could have been helpful. The time seemed right to transition into a conversation with my son about how his brain works and about his ADHD, which we learned from a recent school evaluation. 

Over the past couple of years, I've been on this intellectual (as an educator) and emotional (as a parent) journey of trying to understand the why and what underlying some of my son's behavior. I've read a lot of articles, books, and listened to several podcast that focus on twice-gifted, differently wired kids and neurodiversity. The time was now to jump in to this conversation with him. I'm talking and he's nodding. I reference his creativity, curiosity, and activeness. I talk with him about famous successful people whose minds work overtime like his. More nodding. Then I ask him if he's heard of ADHD. He perks up and says "Yes, mom. I read about it in Captain Underpants Book 12 because George and Harold have ADHD. I can show you where." And there it was. The books that I had confiscated earlier this week because he just could not help but sneak read them after lights out at bedtime, are the same books that have given my son some context to understand himself a little more. Ironic. Despite my son thinking that ADHD means he'll write comics like George and Harold, he does feel more connected to them, their author Dav Pilkey, (who also has ADHD) and Percy Jackson now because he now sees a little of himself in them. The power of books. Thank you, Captain Underpants!