Wow, three pages on the Hufflepuff situation! Only on davidsons...
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Sorry, did not mean to stay away, but we have all been down with a wicked wicked virus and DS8 is actually off school and on antibiotics now for a bacterial infection that has come in on top.
To clarify, yes, we are working expressing emotions safely and all that jazz, will take up CBT again when we are all back to working order. It is the intensity of the emotions, the way they appear to consume him, that floors me every time and makes me feel so helpless in trying to find ways of getting through to him. After all, he's going on nine and I was hoping for maturity to begin to help him with what should be minor disappointments, and every time he melts down and/or explodes like this over trivia it feels like back to square one.
I admit It is my fault for starting the Harry Potter obsession in the first place - he'd refused steadfastly, insisting he only liked "realistic" fiction (spaceships and Famous Five, ahem), but on a particularly trying "I'm booooored" day I made him go to his room and not come out until he read the first volume. He complied screaming and kicking, but Harry worked his magic within minutes. And I was happy that he was finally obsessing about something that had to do with people, and feelings and motivations, unlike, say, minecraft or the like. Yes, he created tables of spells and wonderful technical drawings of broomsticks, but he also grappled with questions of good and evil, loyalty and courage, guilt and redemption.
Um, I want to say that of course the sorting into houses thing is trite and the quizzes are silly but looking at it the way Rowling meant it it, ie the reasons for being sorted not your inborn qualities or talents (which an online quiz of course cannot elicit) but the traits you value, the choices you make and the aspirations you hold (which a online quiz can elicit) I think it is not quite as trite as some of you make out. I think one of the reasons DS8 freaked out was that being sorted into Hufflepuff, despite Dumbledore being his hero and role model, told him something about himself: he'd like to think of himself as daring and brave, but really values community, solidarity and fairness above the dreams of distinction and glory that Gryffindors hold. In short, whilst he is Dumbledores man, he's a little Hufflepuff, through and through!
However, he's accepted that simply wanting to be a Gryffindor rather than anything else is obviously good enough for the hat and will consider himself a Gryffindor for his upcoming wizarding birthday party (the reasons I looked for the ^%#* quiz in the first place! I'll think twice about doing any sorting at this party now!).
What helped most, though, was good old redirection of his mental energies: we had a family reunion and my niece brought out the old Harry Potter Cluedo I'd given her ten years ago. We have played it four times now in as many days (it takes quite a bit longer than ordinary Cluedo, what with the Dark Mark and losing house points and the doors and secret passageways shifting all the time) and he is hooked.
