Benjamin was looking through the photos on my phone tonight and he found a picture that Christian had taken of Peter playing with some of Benjamin's computer components (the screen he's looking at was black, by the way). Benjamin thought Peter looked so cute the way he looked like the perfect gamer, that he browsed through the rest of my photos and told a little story. I thought it was pretty funny. This is how it went:
And not only that, but the ultimate cool gamer.
With perfect balance
And a balanced diet
And with the ultimate examples and positive influences to lead him.
It's a short little story, but I thought it was funny. Benjamin has been coming out of his funk the last couple nights. We've been able to talk a bit and he's actually started playing piano again too. I'm not sure what changed, but there's light at the end of the tunnel. One help was a story which we listened to during dinner. It's from a talk given at BYU in 2017 by Lynn G. Robbins. He's one of the co-founders of the Franklin Covey time management company and he gave an amazing talk called 100% Responsible in which he shares a story about some employees of his who always had an excuse for their mistakes and always shoved the responsibility for the mistakes on others. Kelly and I had both listened to the talk and loved it so Kelly played that story during dinner and we talked about it a little bit, but mostly let the story speak for itself and the next day Benjamin was a little bit better and since then things have been improved. He's still challenging but, like I said, there's light emerging. It's a huge relief.
Here's the link to the talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnfdKt0Iw4w
It's religiously based, but its principles and his "anti-responsibility" list (at 10:36 in the talk) are universal, whether you believe in God or not.
Another thing that I think has helped Benjamin is that I've made him do his homework at the kitchen table. I used to never make him do that because it's busy at home and I didn't want him so distracted. I felt doing it in his room would help him focus better. However, I realized that in his room he was listening to music, messaging his friends, watching YouTube, and playing video games all while doing his homework. Far more distracting than just having people walk around in the room! Blocking most of those sites didn't help either. He always found work-arounds and other sites. He hates that I make him do it in the kitchen, but he's gotten his homework done faster this week and it's allowed him to interact with us more which I think has really helped. Not being so isolated all the time has helped him be happier and more amiable and it's been good for all of us. When he needs a mental break, he talks to us, rather than turning to online entertainment. I've also been able to notice when an assignment doesn't require the computer and the computer is simply a distraction. In those times I can ask him to turn it off and focus and it's really helped him.
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