Christian had been seeing Donovan (a therapist) for a while now to work on managing his anger and emotions. After doing several office sessions and learning how the brain and body process and react to anger... and how he can work on calming himself down and making better choices, it was time to put his learning to the test on the ropes course!
Christian and all three of his parents participated in the ropes course with the idea of all of us learning how best to work with and support Christian. I don't think any of us fully realized that us parents would be doing these challenges alongside of Christian, but we were all on board to help however we could. We started off by getting harnesses on and were taught how to use the cable system to make sure we were locked in at all times. Then Christian was told to decide how he was going to get up to the ropes course. He was supposed to pick the option that would challenge he, but that he felt he could achieve with effort. the choices were a ladder, a rock wall, a rope with spokes or a straight rope. We all agreed that the rope with spokes was probably his best bet for being challenged, yet achievable. Little did we know at that time that the rope ladder was far harder than we realized and Donovan only planned to let him attempt it for 5 minutes before he would send him up the regular ladder. But true to his athletic nature, Christian managed to make it all the way up the ladder within a few minutes and only needed a little coaching.
Once up there I joined him on the first platform and we were told to walk across the X ropes over to the next platform. Christian wasted no time and just headed on out. I figured I would let him get across, them get my butt across. But the idea was for us to get across together as a team, so Donovan had Christian stop and wait for me to catch up. Then we shimmied our way along. As we got close to the other platform, Christian leaned forward, to ahold of the rope and swung over. I followed suit, but a bit less gracefully. Apparently that was also supposed to be me difficult than we made it.
From there Christian was instructed to climb across a rope wall and meet Dan on the next platform, but once he got halfway there Donovan told him to stop and just hang out while Dan climbed up. This was supposed to increase Christian's anxiety and stress levels, but instead he just stuck his head and arms through the ropes and got comfortable. Once Dan was up on the platform Christian was instructed to go the rest of the way across the rope wall and join him.
From that platform Dan and Christian were instructed to face each other, join hands to side step as far out on the beams as they could. The beams gradually got further and further apart so it got harder and harder for they to keep going while still holding hands. The idea of this was for each of them to lean in on each other and use each other as a wall to push on. This takes a lot of trust and team work to keep enough even pressure on each other to not fall. This is definitely where Christian was pushed outside his comfort zone. It was no longer about his athletic ability, but was about trust and team work. After about 15 minutes of trying this with Dan, Donovan had Dan and Todd trade places and he then tried the same exercise with Todd. At this point Donovan really pushed Christian push past his comfort zone and lean forward so his weight was no longer centered over the beam.
After that the only thing left to do was to get down from the ropes course and then discuss what we had just gone through and where we go from there. Donovan started by saying just how amazing Christian's athletic ability is and how difficult the activities that he did with ease are. The he told us parents to stop putting so much acknowledgment into Christian's athletic achievements (because they are already easy for him), instead we should be praising and making note of the times when things aren't easy for him and he still gives it his full effort or when he is working outside his comfort zone.
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