The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time Analysis

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Do Coping Strategies effectively help Christopher? Different coping strategies help many people deal with problems in life. In the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Mark Haddon describes specific coping strategies that help Christopher deal with his problems. Christopher has autism, and deals with his problems much differently than others. When Christopher feels frightened or overwhelmed, he enjoys doing tough math problems and calculating equations in his head. When he feel up- tight and defensive, he likes to hold and grip his pocket knife very firmly. Christopher effectively uses these coping strategies to distract himself and calm down throughout the book. When Christopher feels pressured or overwhelmed he tends to do math problems throughout the book. An example of Christopher doing math to relive stress is during his time on…show more content…
And then I did some maths practice in my head, solving quadratic equations” (Haddon 161). This shows that while Christopher is stressed with the policeman, he blanks out the situation and does math to pass time by. While Christopher talks to Mr. Jeavons, he shows his logistical coping strategy in action: “If you see someone’s name and you give each letter a value from 1 to 26 (a=1, b=2, etc.) and you add the numbers in your head and you find that it makes a prime number, like Jesus Christ (151), or Scooby-Doo (113), or Sherlock Holmes (163), or Doctor Watson (167). Mr. Jeavons asked me if this made me feel safe, having things always in a nice order, and I said it did” (25). Christopher describes how thinking logically, and placing things in proper orders helps him feel safe and protected. He uses mathematics and logic to help him deal with tough and pressured situations throughout the

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