How to Talk to Relative About Difficult Child

Parents Forum
81

The approach you have taken, opening the door to discussion about behavior by describing something the kids said or did based on your concern, sounds right to me. I’d keep doing that and gradually ease into getting the parents to think about these issues (or let you in on any actions they may have taken.)

I think you can talk directly to the kids about some of this behavior, given their ages. You could ask the restless one about school, what he likes best and least. When he is able to focus long enough to compete a math assignment, talk to him about why he was able to concentrate. I’d pursue the issue of how other kids perceive him. If he does have trouble making and keeping friends, that would be worth bringing up to the parents. And I’d help him think of ways to be a better friend.

Edited to add: Anecdotally, there have been a few kids in my kids’ classes who had a hard time controlling their impulses. The factor that finally caught the parents’ attention was when their kids couldn’t make friends. After these kids got some help, the main advantage they themselves pointed out was that now they had friends.

82

This is very true. Earlier @gouf78 said willingness to take in their dog “didn’t mean squat.” That really is completely wrong.

Their last dog was a Shorthaired German Pointer, a breed her H had had as a child, but totally unsuited to their lifestyle: they both work full time, she commutes in and out of NYC, and he has to travel a LOT. The dog was good-natured and intelligent, but just WILD and untrained. Observing me interacting with him on a visit, they asked if I would be willing to take him and train him for a while. I said YES! He stayed with me for almost 2 months. He had separation anxiety, in addition to everything else. I devoted 2-3 hours a day to exercising him, which he really needed. I started basic training. He slept in my bed. He gradually calmed down a bit. Eventually my niece said the boys were asking about him and he had to go back. I tried to convince her to leave him with me and consider finding a more suitable dog to adopt. She said she couldn’t swap in another dog. (I still disagree.) I looked for dogs in CT, which as it happens is how I found my dog, Maggie. Her parents got involved. I begged them not to. Everyone in the family opposed their taking the dog back: her parents, her sisters, my mother. My BIL offered to buy them another dog. It was a bad scene, not of my making, not what I wanted. I said leave me out of it. If you say anything to them make it clear that I asked you NOT to.

Ultimately, I drove down with the dog, and left him with them, which broke my heart. They are good dog people, but they simply could not adequately care for a dog of the breed, given their living situation. They wanted to reimburse me for his care, which included a vet visit and some meds. I told them to forget it, and spend the $$ putting up an electric fence, so that he could at least run a bit in their yard with someone out there with him .A few month later, he slipped his collar, went through the fence, and was hit by a car and killed. She had to call me and tell me. I never said I told you so, or offered anything other than sympathy.

After a year or so they adopted a really sweet pit bull terrier from the shelter. She has also spent some time here in training. :slight_smile:

So my relationship with my niece has already weathered quite a lot. We are really very close, especially as her mother, my S, is a very difficult person. This is not the distant thing so many seem to think is the norm.

83

If they didn’t listen to you about the dog, do you think they’ll listen to you about their children?

84

Parents don’t always know what’s “normal” and what should be evaluated. We’re just too close to our kids. I’m generally in the camp of not saying anything, but sometimes you have to live with yourself at 3 am, when you are thinking “if only I had expressed my concerns, things might have turned out differently.” Clearly you love and are involved with this family and they love you. I would bet that if the boys were being dealt with in some professional way, you would know about it.

My husband’s nephew always presented the classic behaviors of ADHD - he was so difficult to comfort that his parents started giving him baby Tylenol on the actual day they brought him home from the hospital at birth. There were some weird family dynamics with the grandparents, who thought he hung the moon, and wouldn’t let anyone ever acknowledge that there was a problem. The parents thought this was normal because it was their first child. So he never got any help and moved up from grade to grade, a bright kid, but always considered a trouble-maker. Sometimes the worst case scenario stories exist for a reason - because they actually do happen. This kid was that. He started using drugs when he entered high school, and then things continued out of control from that point on. He was diagnosed with ADHD as a sophomore in the context of drug issues, but it was too late. Multiple arrests, voluntary and court-ordered rehab. He will be sentenced to years in prison in a few weeks. Who knows what the outcome could have been if he had gotten help earlier, but what I do know is that not every parent knows when things are off with their kids, and some could really use a supportive guide in seeking help. Maybe in Consolation’s case, speaking isn’t the right thing, but not because she should mind her own business as a matter of course.

85

Good point, @jym626. Even when writing about it, I was thinking that it is kind of a pattern.

Anyway, at least I am close enough to all of them–emotionally, not physically–to offer constructive support.

86

Done right, they may know they can confide in you or lean on you, at some point. The parents and the boys. To me, some of this is about that, letting them feel you’re there for them.

Not all kids who face some challenge will hit rock bottom. But even trouble with friendships, as someone noted, can affect kids, their self esteem. Knowing there’s an affectionate, non-judgmental relative who does give a hoot can be good.

Best wishes.

87

The older I get, the more I understand we all have a lot less control than we imagine.

Consolation: It seems to me you are already a very positive influence in the lives of these children, regardless of behavioral issues and concerns. And it is clear how much you love and enjoy them. Children can’t have too much loving, positive attention, and it is good for them to be exposed to different adult perspectives. It broadens their horizons, which is always useful. imho.

The children are old enough to come for you for advice, if and when they want some. Just being available to fill that role is very important. imho.

If you have the energy, I would suggest you host them one at a time, which would give them more opportunity to open up to you if they want to do so. So much, for me not giving unsolicited advice.

88

If I may offer an imperfect parallel, my mother (a doctor) thought there was something funny about my infant cousin’s eyes. She told my aunt, her sister-in-law, that she ought to take him to a pediatric ophthalmologist. No one wants to contemplate a disability in her child, but my aunt did it, and sure enough my cousin had a serious degenerative condition that needed immediate treatment. It wasn’t curable, but they were able to slow down the progression of his blindness. 40 years later, my cousin still has some residual vision that many with this condition lose completely early in life. My aunt and uncle divorced, and I recently saw this former aunt again for the first time in 30 years. The first thing she said was that she would always be grateful for my mother’s actions.

So sometimes it’s worth a risk to the relationship.

89

OP, I think you are doing a terrific thing for your niece and great-nephews, and their dog. Everything sounds to me that you care deeply, and are trusted by your niece. Having raised a gifted child yourself, you have learned that a parent will never stop being surprised/amazed/amused by what they can and will come up with - both good and bad.

My sister-in-law raised gifted children several years before DH and I raised our pups, and she pointed this out to me. I frequently found myself talking with her about how sometimes their achievements can be truly stunning. DS struggled at an earlier age with being “bossy” with his cousins or classmates, and I will admit now that at the time I was probably not as receptive to other family members comments, but since I had reached out to her, I was much more willing to listen to her when she gently raised concerns. I recall her couching it as “Oh I noticed him doing ___, which is just what (her kid) used to do, until finally we got him to think about it another way by _____”.

And of course, because gifted kids are all different, what works for one will not be at all applicable to another. But remove the word “gifted” from the last sentence and it still rings true for most kids anyway.

Your relationship with your niece is special, and because she has come to you and values your opinion, it should be easier for you to approach her with probing questions about the younger’s potential diagnosis - she will know that you’re not attacking her parenting, or judging her, but you’re just questioning out of concern and love. If you are concerned about her potential reaction, just come right out and say you’re just wondering about certain behaviors, and you won’t give another thought if she ignores your unsolicited advice, as your niece knows more about her sons than you do…but have these behaviors been discussed with a professional, someone who knows more about this than their great aunt… You give her an opening to share however much she wants, and as others have said, be prepared to let her downplay whatever behavior you noticed, and let her think about it on her own.

There are times when it’s best to keep your mouth shut, as family relationships sometimes can involve excessive emotion/baggage/etc. I don’t think this is one of those times.

90

The problem with all parents is that we assume our kids are normal, because we raise them according to our own lifestyles and values, and of course they fit right in there. The trouble comes when what we think is perfectly normal (and allowable at home) behavior, such as stomping on the furniture or never sitting at a table for meals, runs smack into a community standard that the behavior violates. If the parent doesn’t share the community view, or hasn’t been inconvenienced or bothered by their child’s behavior, he/she isn’t going to respond very well when someone says that something isn’t right.

Years ago, I noticed that my nephew was exhibiting a lot of behaviors common to kids with autism. (And contrary to popular belief, you don’t really need to be a bona fide expert to make an educated guess about this type of thing.) I’d been around enough kids with autism to recognize what I was seeing and I’ll bet many on these boards could, too.

So after some preamble, I asked my SIL if she had mentioned my nephew’s rocking and inability to interact well with other children to her pediatrician.She got very defensive and said that social issues were private and that she never discussed such things with her son’s doctor. So I left it at that. But I was really stunned that she wasn’t concerned that her son wasn’t like his peers. Although he wasn’t in preschool, he did have play dates with other homeschoolers and kids from their church.

Over a year later, she called me in tears because her pediatrician suggested her son might have autism and wanted her to see a specialist. By this point, he was almost four years old! I found it truly shocking that she hadn’t seen anything to concern her and that the doctor had had to mention it first.

Fast forward to us a few years later. All through elementary school, teachers would come pretty close to saying my daughter was “tightly wound,” and “intense,” and suggested things like pottery or yoga classes for her. I always took their advice and signed her up for these things. But I didn’t see anything to worry me at home. She got along with her peers, did very well in school, and had a lot of friends. Other adults complimented us on her nice manners. But the fall of her sophomore year in high school, she was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, conditions that persist to this day, and I now wonder if her teachers were seeing this early on, and I just missed it because she seemed so high-functioning. If someone had come right out and said they thought she was anxious, I honestly don’t know how I would have responded.

Sometimes it takes outsiders to get parents to notice these things.

91

@Massmomm True . . . . years ago, a teacher/coach mentioned his observations about one of my kids, I passed it off as nothing. Fast forward several years, and we finally understood kid had anxiety disorder, and that symptoms had been lurking just beneath the surface for years. I am grateful that adult passed along his observations, and regret I didn’t tune in then, as we would have spared my kid several years of undiagnosed stress.

92

It can be very difficult to parse out when what appears to be a personality trait in a kid is a “problem” that needs fixing. Is it something the kid will grow out of? Is the introverted kid that would rather read than play having an issue, or just his personality? Some issues like anxiety can blossom later in high school or young adulthood.

Parents are not always the best at understanding that their kid has a learning or behavioral issue and schools are not always good at finding these issues or suggesting kids get tested. Often schools do not want to add to their special ed population, and set a high bar for help (especially for very bright kids that test in the lower average range, but who would be achieving much more without the LD). I have talked to parents whose kids were struggling a lot and seemed to have a specific learning issue (reading or math but not both) about having them tested and the answer was that the school didn’t say anything so the kid must be fine. And testing doesn’t always identify the problem.

I think your approach is great Consolation - not diagnosing but discussing behaviors you see when the boys are with you. If it continues, I might drop a comment about a kid I knew that was eventually diagnosed with ADD because of similar behaviors and how much it helped the kid to get that diagnosis and help.

93

I’m glad Consolation talked to the parents about her concerns. I know my kids often behaved differently in public than they did at home. (In their case mostly better thankfully.) But I have a high tolerence for intense and restless kids. At some point a friend of mine was talking about her son and said “You know he’s very ADD.” And I remember saying, “Really? I love being with him. We’ve never had any issues.” I do remember that their wonderful fourth grade teacher used to let him walk around the classroom when he got antsy. Anyway, not every parent gets defensive about their kids and even if the first reaction is denial, I think often the seeds are planted so they may be more receptive if they hear similar observations from someone else. I think it’s helpful to try to think about what might be best for the kid in these circumstances.

94

I haven’t read the entire thread but thought I’d share something I posted about a couple years ago. I have a BFF who’s son clearly, to those of us outside the family, had Aspergers. My very smart friend never perceived it as any kind of clinical problem. It took until 8th grade for a teacher to mention it to them. Now she sees clearly that both her kid and her husband are on the spectrum. And it has given both her and her son some comfort. He likes to tell people he is “neuro atypical.” She thought it would be big news to us as her friends, but it wasn’t. My OP was about the conflict prior to the diagnosis of whether I should speak to her about it.