BackSpeaking up for someone else’s son
Help him work through his irritation and frustration with his parents
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We are a retired couple. Our neighbour’s 14-year-old son spends a lot of time in our house, mainly because his parents argue a lot about their ideas of child-rearing—from food, mealtimes and study habits to clothes. From what he has told us, they both tend to appeal to him by putting up their “side" and willy-nilly the boy is playing judge and jury. Case-to-case, they tell him why they think the other parent is mishandling something and he has to decide who is right. Frequently he gets so exasperated that he walks out of the house and sits at our place studying or playing with our dog for long hours. In what way can we intervene without seeming to be interfering or being told to stay out of it…worse, we don’t want it to appear that the boy is unwelcome in our home.
Since it is not just your educated guess but something that the boy has clearly spelt out to you, you would be quite within your limits as concerned adults to broach this subject with his parents. However, you could first encourage the boy himself to take this up with his parents. Right now he doesn’t know how to speak his mind, and is afraid of simply being rude or nasty, and that’s why he just takes himself off the premises and comes to your home. Perhaps you can help him work through his irritation and frustration with them. Get him to articulate a simple response to them that communicates what he feels about their arguments and him having to take sides. Encourage him to bring this up when things are quiet at his home. Let him understand that he is well within his rights (and is not being a bad son) by telling them that their fights are affecting him.
If you think it would be better for you to approach the parents, you would have to first gently ask the boy if it would be alright for you to do so. He should not feel that you’ve gone behind his back to bring it up with them (even if you were to broach it directly with them and urge them not to question the child about confiding in you, you wouldn’t be sure that they will do this). It would be good to lead with what a fine child you think he is, and how you are happy to have him over. From there you can find a way to talk about them not disagreeing and discussing child-rearing methods right in front of the child. It is likely that they will, in their own defence, say that these arguments are about his well-being, but you could firmly state that the way they are going about it defeats the purpose. The phrase “judge and jury" that you have used is extremely telling, and if you think that the conversation with the parents is going well, you can actually spell it out in this way to them, and gently make them aware that it is distressing to the boy to have to be drawn into taking sides. In addition, when a child hears so much arguing about what is or isn’t good for him, he ends up feeling like he is a problem-person who causes his parents so much aggravation.
Our five-year-old often talks loudly at times, babbling some of her chatter, made-up words, laughing to herself lying in bed, especially about half an hour before sleeping. When we try and shush her, she bursts into tears and then does not sleep for at least an hour after that. Should we treat this as just play or some odd behaviour that needs to be looked into? We are trying to get her to sleep in her own bed before we go to bed, so that my husband and I can have dinner together and talk to each other without interruptions; this is the only time of the day that we can do this.
Perhaps it is not time yet to have her examined for any behavioural issue. If you do have a known counsellor or even a grandparent or favourite aunt/uncle of the child who visits regularly, you could have one of them simply observe her during this bout of hyperactivity. Maybe her anxiety levels increase during this time because she has realized that it is time for her to become separated (physically and emotionally) from you. It could also be a pre-sleep semi-conscious state, where her mind is wandering (as happens with adults before sleep, but they do not actually speak out loud) and she is processing the events and feelings of the day in what comes out as odd or garbled speech, laughter, etc. I would strongly urge you not to shush her, but let her run on for a while, especially since she gets so upset when you try to stop her.
Another thing that you could try is to introduce some nightly ritual—have you tried reading to her or telling her a story, or having music running in the background? You could also encourage her to tell you what her day was like, as she winds down for the night, by asking her a few simple and specific questions that do not involve elaborate replies. For instance, “What was the best thing that you ate today?", “Which colour did you like today?" These are to engage her in minor conversation and keep her mind on track and to help her not feel disincluded in the night, which she may be feeling when you insist that she leaves you alone and be left alone. If she insists on replying in a random or unrelated way, don’t be too troubled and don’t insist on the right answer. You could, both of you, also ask each other similar questions, restricting it to three each—best food of the day, best colour of the day, best thing that you did today. The introduction of a predictable and soothing family conversation for 10-15 minutes may prove to be one way to get her to calm down and drift off into sleep. Avoid sweet foods in any form after 6pm.
Gouri Dange is the author of More ABCs of Parenting (Random House), and ABCs of Parenting.
Also Read | Gouri’s previous Lounge columns
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