Frustration Tolerance

Yesterday I did the same songwriting TME with two young ladies who have extreme difficulty with frustration tolerance. Both of them have issues with social interactions and with being told, "No."

So, I have been kicking around the idea of a song written just for them, and it just solidified into a full-fledged TME today. (Isn't it nice when that happens?? Wish it would happen more often!!)

I prepared the room carefully - two pieces of paper with lyrics, two mechanical pencils, and two record albums in their jackets (great sizes for writing boards, by the way). We entered, - each young lady has her own time to be with me in the music room - and I asked them to sit by one of the pieces of paper. I explained that we were each going to write a song and sang the chorus to them. I then asked them to finish the sentences, "I feel frustrated when..." and "When I feel frustrated, I ..." I wrote on my paper, they wrote on theirs. We then shared our sentences and moved into our free time choices.

Next week we will record our songs using the computer.

What was interesting to me about today's sessions was that both of these young ladies expressed that they did not initially want to complete the task but did anyway!  No inappropriate behaviors with the frustration that I caused them. They were able to complete the task and seemed to be willing to do so after the obligatory complaint.

They both wrote about specific situations and were willing to share their feelings and responses to their feelings to me. They also were interested in my answers to the sentences and related my responses to themselves. They were also interested in how we would complete the project the next session.

I'll be continuing to work on our mutual frustration tolerance. Okay, gotta go figure out how to make 24 hours stretch into 72 - sigh!

You know, I'm going to take a page from the book of my two young ladies and do what I have to do...  

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