Beckons the Dragon - Part 3

The Director of the Centre requested that I perform some therapy with her son. I accepted her request and went to see her son today. The Director told me yesterday that he is a very unmotivated boy. I didn’t think too much of it until I saw him.

The Director's son was a typical 17-year-old teenager. When I asked him to do exercises with us, he came up with lots of excuses. I tried to teach him a more suitable way of coming down to the ground from sitting but he said it was easier for him to do it “his way”. “His way” was reaching out to the ground with both hands while seated on the plinth, and going straight into a 2-point kneel position on the mat. He did not go through the half-kneel position but used upper limb support to get himself down. Even when he got back up onto the plinth, he lifted himself with his upper limb strength. He could be doing this due to the fact that he really did not have the strength to get into a different position because his lower limb muscles were just too weak (MMT grade 1/5). The session did turn out to be good eventually but most of the time was spent talking to him and understanding what he wanted out of therapy.

I guess when interacting with teenagers, they do not always share the same vision as their parents. He kept saying that his Mum does not know what he wants and that he will wait to go to Perth next year to do therapy. He said that his Mum has tried many forms of therapy, including surgery, and all these therapies did not help at all. Instead, he has just gotten worse from the many surgeries that he went for. I tried to talk to him and explain that his Mum is doing the best she can for him, and that he has to help himself if he wants to get better. He cannot be passive and wait for therapy to come, but has to be proactive in doing therapy now so that when he goes to Perth next year, he would be able to get so much more out the therapy session there!

What else could be said to a rebellious teenager to get him to do his exercises? I guess, having lots of patience could be something to start with. Have anyone else experienced something like this before?