Comic Strip Conversation

I'm in a very good mood today. Last night, I had a breakthrough with my son, Jonah.

Jonah is going to be 9 this April. He is our family's sweetie pie :) He is always considerate of others, always mindful of the volumn of the TV or computer whenever his dad is still sleeping. He has a lot of determination, once he had so much homework to do, he broke down half way through but continued to finished all of them anyway. He is generous with his savings, he once bought a computer game for Russell with the savings from his pocket money when he learned that Russell didn't have quite enough savings to buy one. He is very helpful. He would even help me clean the toilet without complaining! He is honest and owns up to his mistakes eventhough he knows he would get a scolding. He is obedient and tries to follow the rules given both at home and in school. He is very patient and would wait for his turn quietly. He is also very peaceful, once when he was in kindergarten, he was playing with some toys and another kid barged in and scooped them, all he did was stood up and walked to another toy. He is bigger and stronger than the average kid but he prefers to be the little gentle giant. He is also very reliable and responsible, I can always count on him to remember to do important things.

He is the quiet type and prefers to watch and see what's happening before trying things out himself. And I found him surprisingly very observant many times when I least expected them. He is also shy and refused to talk whenever he is upset. He would sob quietly, sulk and refused to talk about it to anyone. As a parent, I feel frustrated when that happened because I want to help him with his feelings and thoughts.

As a mother of an Asperger child (read my previous post), I have been reading books on that subject and eventhough I do not need to use this technique with Russell, I decided to give it a go with Jonah. It's called the comic strip conversations by Carol Gray. And guess what? You guessed it! It successfully helped Jonah to overcome his struggle to comprehend and rationalise his feelings and the party involved (in this case, it was with Russell).

I felt so happy when he 'talked' about it :) Oh, that was joyful enough for me. And that is why I'm still in a very good mood now and especially when remembering him telling me he felt better and not upset any more. Below is the piece of comic conversation that we had last night. He doodled on it after our conversation ended.

My heart is still smiling :D