Writing things down, crossing them out?

[TheSunnySide]

Hi
My 10 year old has been going through a period of sadness which has been made worse by his grandfather dying suddenly and some issues in school.

He has a very good TA who helped him make a book to write his worries in and he had been carrying the book around with him.

I am not sure what the end game was but it seemed to be helping. However I contacted the school about another issue (friendships/possible bullying) and in the process of sorting it out another member of staff saw he had the book and proceeded to go through the list and get him to cross most of the things out because they were things he shouldn't worry about. In a call to me she questioned why he had the book so I pointed out this was something given to him in school.

Should I be concerned by the fact that she seemed unaware of what the other member of staff was doing, or by the fact that there is little communication on the point of the book in the first place?

I feel like one person is trying to help and the other is telling him his worries don't matter.

I wanted to come back to this to say that since writing I did a bit of reading and my son and I found the book 'Stuff that sucks' by Ben Sedley really helpful.

It is the absolute opposite of writing things down and crossing them out, instead it talks you through acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and since reading it with him he has turned around massively.

So glad he's doing better. I definitely wouldn't have expected the teacher to not know what the other was doing. You'd hope they were more joined up! I know writing things down can be cathartic because it gets it out of your head and onto paper. Not heard of that book but might check it out.

I’m sorry nobody responded to you first time. I think what’s happened above is two school staff members practicing a bit of their own armchair psychology. I can see the value in writing a list (when I’m stressed at work I find it very helpful to write down all the things that are in my head), but it might not be the right tool for this particular situation. I can see the sense in crossing things off the list, it’s logical, and striking through ‘unimportant’ things could make sense, but it’s quite an adult solution. Ultimately neither should be implementing solutions independently, though schools will sometimes have tools that they have seen used before.

If the book has helped that is excellent. I have an anxious 7yo so will make a note.

Thanks both. I was so worried about him at the time that I did a bit of reading and found something that worked for him.

The book is very short and would need the reader to do a bit of editing as some of the topics are a bit adult (self harm and drug use) but I found reading it to my son and cutting out the bits that were too much for him really did help.