We are four couples in our mid 40’s with individual and collective friendships spanning two decades. We all met as students and in share-house accommodation, and have hung out over the years – being part of one another’s lives over that time in various ways such as going to each other’s weddings, travelling together, hanging out at events and parties at one another’s homes etc. The friendships are both collective and individual, and whilst there can be the usual minor disagreements and challenges there is a strong history and a lot of mutual respect. Whilst we all have distinct lives and careers, we all face the standard middle-class dilemmas of our age such as juggling work, recreation, mortgages and life stresses. Each of the couples has 2-3 children aged between 7 and 11 years of age (collectively there are nine kids). These kids obviously see one another at our various ad-hoc social gatherings (perhaps 4-6 times per year) and play, watch movies together, and generally hang out.
One couple in the group (we’ll call them Bob and Christina) have two children. Their oldest “Kate” is 11 (F). Kate is the oldest of all the collective children and tends to lead the kid pack at our social gatherings due to her elder status, physical size (she is quite tall, very physically able) and generally demands a lot of attention. To a greater or lesser degree when they hang out, the younger kids in the pack tend to fall in line under her leadership. Kate holds particular influence over the younger girls each of the families.
Kate is not well. She has myriad complex psychological challenges that are not easily defined that make her an extremely challenging child. She is very smart, diagnosed as being on some sort of spectrum, impulsive, extremely self-centred, constantly demands attention, is disrespectful of her parents and authority and struggles with empathy. This is well known - over the years her parents (in particular her mother) have spent a small fortune on assessments, strategies and medication. She goes to a remedial school, has regular programmes and assessments etc. Outwardly she presents as quite normal, and she is capable of being friendly and nice, but it does not take long for those around her to realise that all is not 100%. Kate’s destructive abilities are increasingly impacting on the other children in the group. There are various examples that each parent could hold up, but I will just use those of my own experience: For various years she has attended the birthday parties of my daughter (9). The previous year Kate stole one my child’s birthday presents. To her credit, six months after the event she admitted this. As an olive branch she was invited again as a birthday party guest but this time she decided to unwrap my daughter’s birthday presents and trashed her room, spoiling her day. More disturbingly, the last three visits Kate has physically hurt my daughter. These injuries are ostensibly accidental and minor, but have become too coincidental to ignore. At our last gathering Kate was carrying and hugging a pet cat, and when my daughter stood next to her she shoved it at her face – the cat panicked and clawed my daughter below the eye. I was there at the time and I witnessed Kate’s deliberate actions that contributed to this. For me, that was a sign that an increasingly precocious Kate has real potential to harm my children. Kate bullies her younger brother mercilessly, including some quite disturbing things including reportedly making him drink her urine.
Our friendship group is quite open and communicative. My experience of Kate is reflected in the experiences of the other parents. We are all worried about Kate’s ability to influence and dominate, and with Kate approaching puberty there is a concern that she is gaining an increasing hold over the child group (particularly the daughters who are both younger and more impressionable). Kate’s lack of empathy means that she can be particularly mean, even when she has a smile on her face and they are all playing normally.
As a friendship group we are all aware of the situation and have spoken generally with her parents about the challenges that Kate faces, although we have been cautious not to be alarmist. Christina (Kate’s mum) is relatively open about the challenges of her child, but she is also absolutely exhausted by them. Their second child is an insulin dependent diabetic – so their parenting load is particularly demanding. From what I can see, Bob (Kate’s dad) is in denial – he is poorly emotionally equipped to deal with this. He has become a workaholic, travels all the time and aside from reprimanding Kate for misbehaviour he appears to have largely withdrawn from active parenting. An increasingly independent Kate now has an ipad, and is commonly left to her own devices in her room. She has taken on a range of quite disturbing interests and fascinations (evidenced through disturbing drawings and writing, somewhat age inappropriate YouTube videos etc which she shows my children) that I do not feel are appropriate for a child of 11.
Christina has truly suffered in all of this and has ended up on medication herself to cope with what must be incredibly hard circumstances. The mums of the group try to engage with her, but are increasingly unable to offer the support she needs as they try to balance the friendship with the real emotional damage that Kate is bringing about on their own children. I suspect for self-preservation purposes Christina has largely resigned herself to the (probably negative) fate of her daughter. When I saw Christina at a party last year and I inquired about how Kate was doing she gave the resigned response of “Oh, Kate is in a hopeless spiral of self-destruction of herself and everything around her” before moving quickly on to other topics.
Myself and the dads of the group play squash once a week, mostly as an excuse to drink beer together after the game. We use occasion to talk about life, challenges, parenting etc. We invite Bob every week to join us, and have pointed out to him that he (and we) need this time to hang out, share stories and be present for one another, but Bob rarely attends. Despite us opening the door, and in some cases leading the conversation, Bob is largely incapable of talking about family matters to us. I get the feeling he has a sense of shame about all of this - his conservative parents declared that Kate (their granddaughter) was a product of the devil and sent to them as a punishment for not going to church.
Despite their considerable efforts for years Kate’s behaviour has not improved. It now feels like Bob and Christina have come to the end of the road when it comes to parenting Kate and have given up. Their child has derailed their lives in so many ways, and returns little love or joy.
As parents we have taken it upon ourselves to explain to our own children than Kate is not well and that they need to come to the adults if they, in any way feel uncomfortable when they see her. We have worked to remain friends and be inclusive for the last few years, although now things are becoming increasingly difficult. Kate inflicts a real emotional toll on our kids. But we recognise that Kate’s parents need us as their social outlet as their lives are tough. We want to be there for them.
At the same time we are not professional counsellors and whilst we need to discuss this matter, we figure the last thing they need is concerned advice givers like ourselves who make non-professional diagnoses and judgements. I have experienced this and it is awful. My wife and I went through IVF before having children. It was an terrible emotional roller coaster, and one of the most difficult things about it was the (well intentioned, but non-professional) advice that many friends gave us to fall pregnant. We were overwhelmed by these perspectives, when in fact science was required and not judgement.
As such, to keep the friendship, we have all gritted our teeth and managed to keep it together until a few weeks ago. One of the sets of parents (of whom the dad is Christina’s brother) snapped. Kate’s destructive behaviour towards his children (at a family event where the other friends were not present) eventually triggered his outburst which immediately ended the social gathering. By their account things could have been dealt with better, but in the heat of the moment and as a consequence of the very real fears that Kate generates for the wellbeing of their children his outburst reflected many of the things that we all think – that Kate is a destructive force, their perceived “giving up” of parenting in this case is problematic, and that they (we) cannot continue to expose their kids to this situation. All of us in the friendship group increasingly feel the same way.
We feel deeply for Christina and Bob. They are awesome people and enrich our friendship and lives. No one’s lives are perfect, but I would take my family and parenting problems any day over theirs.
How can this be resolved? Kate’s behaviour alarms all of us, threatens her family life, and increasingly dominates the nature of our friendship. As much as we try to be there for Christina and Bob, they are so overwhelmed and resigned to the situation that it is as if they have given up. I, for one am not willing for Kate to be unsupervised around my daughter as she has real capacity to hurt her (emotionally and/or physically). We all want the best for them and they need their friends, but we, and they, are ‘running out of road’ here.
TL:DR :Close family friends’ child shows signs of dangerous psychological tendencies targeted towards our children. This is stretching their parenting, wellbeing and our collective friendships to breaking point.
Submitted November 03, 2019 at 12:03AM by SoulHoover https://ift.tt/2oFhyry
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