One of my lovely boys came this morning. He has Tourettes and had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder though he appears to be largely growing out of the latter. I have been seeing him for several years at about two monthly intervals both to help with coping with his Tourettes but also to help him deal with a rather stressed family life. Tourettes is a tic disorder and for him means involuntary body movements particularly when stressed or tired. This can be seriously embarrassing in school – even though it was well managed by medication.  When I first met him – he was referred by his paediatrician at 12– he was a timid, rather wimpy boy who was anxious about school, largely friendless and totally dependent on his father, who, amongst other things, ensured that C.J. took his medication. His father was wonderful but highly protective of his son. Over time, C.J. has learned to trust me, as has his father. We reached the point where I was advising Father that he must help his son towards independence and planning how they could organise trips to town, how C.J could learn about going on buses and how to ask for help when he was lost. Father was persuaded to allow C.J. out for bike rides with his friends. We talked about him making his own mind up about friendships and ethical issues, we encouraged him to think about a future.  Last year after exams he left school for College – and blossomed immediately. I am not sure this was despite or because he was placed in a group for slower learners.  Normally we don’t really offer appointments to children after they leave school, but we do see them through the transition period, and, in this case, I wanted to continue working with the paediatrician. He had always largely disliked school and although he was nervous about the new setting, timetables etc, he began to thrive. There was a minor hiccup when C.J. decided that College didn’t suit him either but that was easily overcome. This morning C.J. came clutching a gift that he has bought for his girl-friend’s mother. The relationship is several months old now and he is proud and happy. He was much more keen to talk about his music. Last year he decided he wanted to learn to play the guitar, bought one and practised. He sounds super – in October he brought the guitar in to play to me, today he showed me clips on his phone. Not only does he now play pop songs I recognise, but it sounds like music, it flows. And he is part of a group with plans to play in public and an understanding and acceptance that his voice is not good enough for him to lead the band. He has grown-up well. He came by himself and was going on to meet friends. He is confident about his present – although he has not made plans for a future-, plays football for a team, and is looking forward to starting a music course in September. He seems to have adjusted to the vagaries of his particular family, his tics are largely under control. Talking to him was a pleasure, and I’m looking forward to seeing him again.

This from five years ago: it came back into my mind as I read today that in Sudan , children are being injured and sometimes slaughtered despite the agreement that the south can secede.
Three asylum seeking African boys have been referred. They have been sent here by their mothers to avoid near-certain death, speak so little English as to be totally dislocated from everything said to them, come from villages where the main problem is lack of rain, and find themselves in a damp town full of lights and traffic. They seem awfully young though they are tall and good-looking and now smile sometimes.  I have two concerns for them. One is obviously the trauma they have experienced. The other is the total lack of fun and teenage-boy-things in their lives. My daughter was suggesting that a big loss in the lives of unaccompanied child refugees is that safe feeling you have when you are with a parent who takes over. As a child, you can relax, let go, sleep if you want to – in the secure knowledge that someone else will keep you safe. These boys have no longer got that safety.  They are housed in a large former council home, with families and single people all en route to some other accommodation. The three share a room, and all stretch just a little beyond their bed length. The room is impersonal, naturally, and the boys have few belongings. Food is provided but they have been unable so far to attend English classes and can only ask questions when they have a native speaker available to translate for them. Most of the staff only speak english although they are kind and well-intentioned. No pets are allowed, and football is unwelcome because the ball breaks windows. They are full of energy and depression. Perhaps the first aggravates the second. I decided to offer to take them swimming, and when it was deemed acceptable by the powers that are, bought them trunks and collected them at teatime. They were nicely dressed and looked excited. We drove some distance to the Leisure Centre and I paid for them to go in. Then what? There were no men on duty but I was lucky enough to find a male cleaner who could speak with them and he took them to the changing rooms and showed them how the lockers worked, where the facilities were etc. I watched them come into the pool, duck under the water, stand under the water feature, swirl again and again down the lazy river, and just enjoy the power of their bodies. It was good.  Afterwards we went for an Indian meal. I used animal noises to identify the meat and other sounds to indicate spicy food. They seemed to enjoy the different tastes. One of the boys laughed and said ‘This good. At home, we sit together with mother and eat.’ Later I saw another boy smiling. Why? I asked, and he smiled again and said ‘swimming’. We drove home in a companionable silence, admiring the house and street lights and the fuzzy edges that rain leaves on lampposts. And when we got back, they said Thank you again and again and again. This was such a normal part of my son’s life, and should be the normal entitlement of any child. The United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child clarifies this and we still allow awful things to happen to too many children.

Next time I shall post the update.

I did an interview on a radio station last week about diaries. It seems that a mum had deliberately but with some misgivings, read her six year old daughter’s diary. And had read the child describing herself as fat and ugly and stupit and no wonder no-one likes her. She’s actually a pretty little girl and – as you might imagine from the diary, not stupid at all. And mother and daughter talked about it, and helped the girl to rearrange her ideas, her values and her thoughts about herself….

But the interview was less about this particular incident than about the ethics of reading diaries at all [or checking up on Facebook etc].Up to a certain age – say 9 or 10, a child tends to feel that it is OK to share with parents. It is more common for parents to want to insist on rules of privacy and to avoid children discovering stuff they shouldn’t and subsequently asking awkward questions. Soon after, children can be seen jealously guarding their diaries, letters and emails. And I tend to agree that it is important to teach the concept of privacy.

But what to do when you are worried, or even accidentally come across your child’s diary?

If you are worried, you will probably still agonise for ages about whether or not you should look at  a diary – especially one with ‘Keep Out, That Means You’ on the cover. But if you have a genuine worry, you can probably justify reading the diary on need to know grounds. What if you have no excuse at all , other than genuine nosiness?

I think in the second case, that is something you need to square with your conscience.

In either case, if you read your child’s diary when you have been preaching the value of privacy, the cardinal rule is NOT TO TELL. Use the information if that is useful [you discover a party is planned when you are away for a weekend, your son is having sex, your daughter has been shop-lifting] but [if you have to] explain that you gained the knowledge some other way. A neighbour mentioned the party…… , someone else’s son is having sex and you want to talk about keeping safe, shop-lifting is something you did when you were young – others were arrested and now you feel the need to return the oxo cubes anonymously.

It is very tempting to tell your child that you know this or that is a problem, but that would be fatal to a positive relationship. Let them assume you are all-knowing, and that you respect their private thoughts!!!!!

Sally is tall and well-built, facially unprepossessing with hair that is not quite short, glasses, and pudgy features. She goes to her local Comprehensive school and seems to be bright, with no trouble with her school work and a number of interests outside school like Kung Fu and Conservation Work. Her parents love her dearly but are in despair. She is miserable, constantly complains and lies to her friends to make herself more interesting. I’ve seen Sally four times so far, and spoken at length with her Mum – as with some other families, Father tends to leave this sort of stuff to his wife. Sally is unhappy. Her size makes it hard to remember that she is only in Y8 but she talks like someone of that age. Except she also shows some insight. Sally is friends with a group of three girls, but feels she is always the optional add-on, the one the others don’t always tell things to, the one sometimes not invited to sleep-overs. She doesn’t share their musical taste, though she tries, and they don’t make fashionable clothes in her size which she knows makes her different. Being cleverer than most of the others in her class seems to be isolating too.  We have tried a number of strategies to help develop her self-esteem, and at times, things have seemed better. Sally was filling in a diary of Things to be Glad About every evening, to remind her of all the things that go right in her life. She took more of an interest in her appearance and put a mild colour on her hair which looked better. Sally began to tell me of how she was trying to eat differently in order to lose weight and it seemed sensible.  We talked about her Mum too and she complained that her Mum was always having ‘that time of the month’. She claimed that her mum was always ‘in a mood’. Obviously this is only one side of the story, but Sally’s perception is a very important starting point. She feels that her mother constantly interferes – a common complaint at 13 – that when she is trying to not eat because she is not hungry [and there is no suggestion that she has any signs of an eating disorder] her mother insists that she eat and usually gives her crisps and chocolate. Similarly, her mother complains that she is insolent particularly in front of other girls, and Sally feels that she tries hard not to be, pointing out that one of the other girls has cat fights with her mother. Sally loves her Dad, but he seems to leave it all to his wife. Any attempt to talk with Mother privately and suggest that she tries a slightly different tack, has failed. Mum seems determined that the problem lies within Sally – had there been more paternal involvement, I would have tried to encourage him to give Mum the confidence to let go a little. There is a younger girl, and she is sociable and popular, not like Sally at all. In many ways, Mum seems very like this older daughter, constantly complaining and miserable. I don’t feel very successful with Sally. She appears to try many of the suggestions I make but says the efforts she makes are generally not supported by Mum. Today, Mum said she could see very little point in Sally coming back since things weren’t changing sufficiently quickly. If she did as we agreed, it is much more likely that things would improve. Sally cried a lot during our session and she needs some sort of emotional outlet. Perhaps I need to talk to Mum without Sally and see what we can come up with. Ultimately, Mum is with her for much of the time, I am not.