How to rekindle love? (2)

[Rose888]

Yes. Patience. Trying to "strew" helpful materials. Talking.

I've tried all of these with mixed success.

One recent example was not wanting to go to a party for a school activity. It's a largish group (for our area). Teen has social anxiety about parties. I never know whether to encourage going, or how hard to encourage. Gentle encouragement was not working, and then kid got sick.

Another example is trying to reframe negative thoughts around stress or school or interactions with friends. If there are two ways to frame things, one that makes it not about him and one that makes him feel bad about himself, he always chooses the second.

I did have one success last week. He came to me upset about an issue at school, and I found myself trying to fix it, and he was getting frustrated with me. Then I caught myself and switched to validating, and he quickly returned to a calmer state.