Music or Animals

Kids have a great connection with both. Having a pet at home or volunteering at an animal shelter can also help a child. Animals need love and discipline (just like kids do!) and it gives them a different point of view to be on the giving (not receiving) end of the discipline.

I'm with the previous posters -- get him involved in something he adores and can lose himself in. My step-son (9) has a very mild muscle disorder, and he has to take a couple of supplements to help his muscles grow. The doctor told us that he will most likely never get worse than he is now -- and he isn't bad at all. He runs and plays and is fine. He is growing normally, etc. What he has is very mild, very treatable -- really nothing more serious than near-sightedness or mild asthma. NOT debilitating, NOT life-threatening.

However, step-son's bio-mom has been telling everyone, including SS that he has muscular dystrophy -- a catastrophic disease that kills its victims usually by the time they are in their 20s. She has him convinced he will be in a wheelchair in a few years, and she uses it to get attention for herself. When people meet him after they've heard her talk about him, they are amazed at how "normal" he is.
He has asked me many times what will happen to him, and when he will be in a wheelchair, and he'll say things like, "I probably better not run around too much because of my muscular dystrophy."

I keep him involved in Scouts, and sports, and playing outside with friends, because that's my only proof to him -- beyond the doctor's report -- that he is just fine. I tell him straight out, "You do not have muscular dystrophy." He forgets about it when he is out playing with friends, and he can outrun most of the boys in his scout troop. He climbs fences, and jumps around, and acts like a normal, energetic 9-year-old boy. This way, when he asks me about his "condition," I remind him that children with muscular dystrophy can't do those things -- that he is very lucky to be so healthy -- that he has a mild muscle disorder and that he is going to be just fine.

What ticks me off is that as long as he takes his supplements on a regular basis -- basically over-the-counter vitamins, two kinds -- his growth and everything is fine. But when he is with his bio-mom, she conveniently "forgets" to give him his supplements, or she can't afford to buy them. Yet she's all over facebook asking everyone to pray for a cure for muscular dystrophy for her poor afflicted son. Thank God she doesn't have him very often, or I seriously think she would do something to him just to MAKE him ill.

She tells everyone that SS's dad (my DH) is in "denial" about SS's MD. Makes me so mad.

All you can do is support your boy, give him activities that make him forget that he "can't" do things, and then use those later as proof -- "You are not stupid, look at how great you are at ______."

Eventually, he will believe it, and he will thank you for believing in him.

Hang in there!