Introducing DnD as a method to deal with unexpected situations?
My daughter is 7yo and is on the heavier(?) side of the spectrum. I believe she is like most kids her age but she does have her moments. She loves to read, building legos, painting, videogames, telling jokes, etc. if anything she’s just a little nerdier than other kids but im a huge nerd so it probably comes from me rather than it being an autistic trait.
We were watching Ponyo a few weeks back and she recognized the Dunkleosteus and even told me from what time period it was from.
Anyways, yesterday there was a car accident on our usual route to school. Traffic was a little backed up so we got to school later than usual. She was starting to stress out because she was gonna be late to school, i told her it was fine and the teacher would understand. Atp i had already lost her cause she kept on looking at her watch and groaning.
As soon as we arrived to her school she rolled down her window and yelled for her teacher to wait cause the first bell had just rang. As as i was opening her door she got down and almost ran across the street while cars were passing by. I dropped everything and grabbed her with both arms. She started screaming, “Let me go! Don’t touch me!” and she scratched my arms trying to remove them.
I eased my grip and held her until she calmed down. She noticed the scratches on my forearm and she said sorry. I told her to not worry about it and to just never run across the street like that. I told her we would talk about it later that night but to have fun at school.
It didn’t hit me until later how the situation might be misinterpreted. I am Afro-Latino and my wife is Caucasian, our daughter looks Caucasian. Our daughter goes to a school with majority Caucasian community. One wrong call and idk if I would’ve made it home that day.
I don’t think my daughter is ready for that race talk, yet. What I’m more worried about is her inability to be flexible with rules and acting as if rules are set in stone.
Could DnD serve as a tool to help her deal with problems that have no clear solutions? Or just to deal with the chaos of unexpected events?
Also any tips on helping her deal with the chaos of life are very much appreciated.