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Dear Care and Feeding,
My mom lives several states away. We see her a couple times a year, but my children don’t know her well because of the distance. Meanwhile, my sister lives around the corner from her, so her kids have a completely different relationship with “Grandma” than mine do.
She recently visited us, and I needed her to pick my 8-year-old up from day camp. It would be just the two of them for a few hours before I got off work, something that hasn’t happened before—usually I’m around or my sister’s kids. Well, that day, my son did not have a good time at camp and apparently didn’t talk much after pickup. He was even quiet with me once we met up. My mom said that she had to spend all afternoon with my son, and he wouldn’t talk to her. We had planned to get ice cream together, but my mom asked me to drop her off at the house instead.
She later told me that my son needs to be taught how to respond to people. I have tried reading him books about interacting with people, I have role-played with him and read many articles on how to help him. I don’t know how to make my shy, sensitive child respond to people he is uncomfortable with. Do you have tips? How can I help my mom to have a better relationship with him?
—Grandma/Grandson Mediator
Dear Mediator,
First, it is 100 percent OK that your son is shy and sensitive and just not a big talker. Of course, if you or his physician or teachers ever have reason to be concerned that there’s something more going on, you can always have him evaluated, but based on your letter alone I don’t see any evidence of that? He’s 8. He is still learning and developing, and in the coming years he will change a lot and learn to communicate in all sorts of ways. But also, anyone, at any age, can easily clam up when they’re with someone they don’t feel comfortable with, especially when they get the sense that person might be judging them!
I think this was your mom’s communication failure, not your kid’s. Seriously, who is the adult here? Your mother seems to be expecting that a close relationship with your son will magically happen with no effort on her part at all, which is completely unrealistic. They don’t really know each other, it sounds like, and so she should try to remedy that before expecting him to converse at length with her.
The very worst way to get to know an 8-year-old is to sit there asking him a bunch of rapid-fire questions, judging him (and sulking!) when he struggles to respond. Instead, your mom should have tried to spend time with your son doing things he does enjoy—reading, playing outside, preparing and eating a treat, making slime, doing a puzzle or a game, whatever; this all sounds very boring because it is. It’s just basic! You hang out with a kid, doing whatever it is they like to do. You show them that you care about them and like being with them. Congratulations: You have bonded with a child.
If you want to, you can try to help facilitate that by talking with your mom about who your son is and what his interests are, and being present during her visits to help with conversation and suggest activities. But first I think she needs to take responsibility for her part in the dynamic, and try for a necessary change in attitude the next time she sees your son. Instead of expecting him—again, a child!—to automatically feel comfortable with her and perform a closeness that doesn’t yet exist, she should do whatever she can to meet him where he is and cultivate genuine closeness by showing that she cares about and wants to spend time with him.
Link
My mom lives several states away. We see her a couple times a year, but my children don’t know her well because of the distance. Meanwhile, my sister lives around the corner from her, so her kids have a completely different relationship with “Grandma” than mine do.
She recently visited us, and I needed her to pick my 8-year-old up from day camp. It would be just the two of them for a few hours before I got off work, something that hasn’t happened before—usually I’m around or my sister’s kids. Well, that day, my son did not have a good time at camp and apparently didn’t talk much after pickup. He was even quiet with me once we met up. My mom said that she had to spend all afternoon with my son, and he wouldn’t talk to her. We had planned to get ice cream together, but my mom asked me to drop her off at the house instead.
She later told me that my son needs to be taught how to respond to people. I have tried reading him books about interacting with people, I have role-played with him and read many articles on how to help him. I don’t know how to make my shy, sensitive child respond to people he is uncomfortable with. Do you have tips? How can I help my mom to have a better relationship with him?
—Grandma/Grandson Mediator
Dear Mediator,
First, it is 100 percent OK that your son is shy and sensitive and just not a big talker. Of course, if you or his physician or teachers ever have reason to be concerned that there’s something more going on, you can always have him evaluated, but based on your letter alone I don’t see any evidence of that? He’s 8. He is still learning and developing, and in the coming years he will change a lot and learn to communicate in all sorts of ways. But also, anyone, at any age, can easily clam up when they’re with someone they don’t feel comfortable with, especially when they get the sense that person might be judging them!
I think this was your mom’s communication failure, not your kid’s. Seriously, who is the adult here? Your mother seems to be expecting that a close relationship with your son will magically happen with no effort on her part at all, which is completely unrealistic. They don’t really know each other, it sounds like, and so she should try to remedy that before expecting him to converse at length with her.
The very worst way to get to know an 8-year-old is to sit there asking him a bunch of rapid-fire questions, judging him (and sulking!) when he struggles to respond. Instead, your mom should have tried to spend time with your son doing things he does enjoy—reading, playing outside, preparing and eating a treat, making slime, doing a puzzle or a game, whatever; this all sounds very boring because it is. It’s just basic! You hang out with a kid, doing whatever it is they like to do. You show them that you care about them and like being with them. Congratulations: You have bonded with a child.
If you want to, you can try to help facilitate that by talking with your mom about who your son is and what his interests are, and being present during her visits to help with conversation and suggest activities. But first I think she needs to take responsibility for her part in the dynamic, and try for a necessary change in attitude the next time she sees your son. Instead of expecting him—again, a child!—to automatically feel comfortable with her and perform a closeness that doesn’t yet exist, she should do whatever she can to meet him where he is and cultivate genuine closeness by showing that she cares about and wants to spend time with him.
Link
no subject
Which brings me to point two. I was surprised that nobody in the Slate comments said the words "selective mutism". I'm not saying, based on this short snippet, that this is what's going on here - heck, I can't even tell if we should believe that the kid literally didn't talk to Grandma or if she just is complaining that he wasn't a bubbly chatterbox.
However, if the parents already think this is a problem, and it sounds like they do, then this is something they need to get on the ball about. Evaluations have a waiting list, and selective mutism is not something that shows up alone by itself. It is better not to wait about this sort of thing.
no subject
Came here to say literally this! No wonder the poor kid didn’t speak around her. Her attitude would probably be enough to make even a not-especially-shy kid clam up.
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Who is the adult here? is the right question IMHO.
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So is grandma blowing up over a one-day occurrence? It’s not clear. But having a bad day and not wanting to talk can happen to anyone at any time. Let the kid have quiet time in his room.
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The thing is, that shouldn’t have been done to you. It wasn’t right. It was normalized, but it wasn’t right. And we’re not going to continue that trauma down to our own kids simply because it was done to you and now you think you’re owed the same “respect” (which isn’t respect, it’s appeasement born out of the fear).
So you can put the time into creating a genuine relationship where our kids will want to interact with you out of love - which is the same thing your own grandparents should have done! - or you can accept that your grandkid is an acquaintance who owes you nothing.
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The advice in the response, and even more so the comments here are pretty good for dealing with grandma and potentially helping her nurture a relationship if she can.
But that does also sound like there's a pattern LW is concerned about. My best guess as to an approach is two-pronged. As several people said, avoid putting pressure on him. If he's normally shy, avoiding exaggerating the difficulty can avoid making it worse. And if he does have autism or anxiety, letting him grow at his own pace lets him improve more than trying to force him into a level of interaction he's not ready for. I've known several children who have only been able to easily interact with people in quite specific ways, but then in their teens have started getting on really well with people.
On the other hand, sometimes external help is actually helpful. Sometimes the right counsellor "gets" the child's difficulty in way other people don't, or they're really struggling with emotions or sleep and the right medication really helps. So I think it's worth pursuing that if they can, with the knowledge that it's a process that might or might not be helpful, and to avoid anyone approaching it in a "force child to pretend to be superficially normal" way.
Both ways, it sounds like LW was already trying reasonable things to help kid get on with people. If kid is positive about them it's worth keeping it up -- it doesn't avoid awkward silent days but it might help the kid absorb some stuff longer term. And asking the kid, what he thinks. If he'd like to interact with people but isn't sure how, then that talking can help. If he has ok days and quiet days then maybe that's all fine. Or if he'd like to get on better with grandma there may be some simple tricks that would work (even if it's just him saying "would you like to draw with me" or whatever, if he hadn't realised that might be an option).
no subject