Parents in denial

katyy123
Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:58:49 +0000

Thanks for taking the time to give me ideas!

I like the suggestion about giving him something to be competitive about. So it’s a matter of finding out what would.

All those posters who suggest I make him think for himself using various means, eg asking him questions. Yes, that’s great, and I do something similar. I was never one into lecturing, mostly I pose questions to prod youngsters to do their own thinking. But at this time, my nephew doesn’t seem to want to do much of that. He feels there’s no hurry, not time to do some serious mental activity in terms of planning for even the next year, never mind the future.

Perhaps at some point I can try post #130’s script. Right now, yes or no questions–even about fun things/computer games/friends—are answered with a mumbled “nyah”. Never sure if it’s a no or yes. Open-ended questions are answered with a shrug or “depends”.

He just finished 9th grade, but depending on his grades, not sure what next year holds, may have to repeat the year or some classes or ??

I have to agree with csdad post #156, and another poster who says my SIL has to put on a good face because she probably knows it’s not all good. These days, most conversations revolve around the following topics no matter how I try to avoid them:

Topic 1: How smart he was as a baby, then through toddler years, elementary school…So we don’t always get to the present unless I have 10 hours to spare. If she had more than one child, she’d realize that all babies/toddlers do these things, but with an only child, it’s all magical.

Topic 2: How high-achiever X got very depressed, good-student-Y committed suicide, and wonder-student-Z started using meth…And how fortunate her son isn’t like them.

Topic 3: "[Some famous/successful person] did very poorly in [HS/college] and turns out to be such a success.

Topic 4: The truly bad kids do [hard drugs/hurt animals/commit robberies/murder…] and how wonderful he doesn’t.

My speaking contribution is about 3%, limited to “Well, not everyone with a master’s degree commit suicide” after a long tale of someone who did.

So if posters suggest she’s in protection mode, I imagine that may be the case.