Worried about my wife's brother

LegacyUser

Hi everyone,
First of all, apologies for the length, but there's a lot to say

Here's the situation

My wife has a much younger brother. He's 13 and started first year of secondary school this year

His father died suddenly almost 3 years ago and his mother is in her 50s

The young fella has always been a bit different to other kids, when he was very young, he was hyperactive and full of energy, in the last few years he has been undergoing assessment for possibly being on the autistic spectrum. They've ruled out autism but he is marginal for Asbergers and he has dysbraxia

The main problem is that he is a a very unhappy child. Since his father died, he had been acting out at his primary school. He spoke openly about killing himself on a number of occasions and there were a some incidents where these were very public acts in front of his entire class.

He has no friends and no social skills to speak of. Other children tend to avoid him because he annoys them by speaking out of turn and saying inappropriate things

I have known this child for most of his life, since he was 3 and I have always been a bit concerned about the way his mother treats him. She has always treated him as a baby

He slept in her bed with her until he was 10 years old, she never taught him how to tie his shoelaces. He still can't tie a knot at the age of 13. (I realise that dyspraxia makes these things more difficult but it's an essential life skill and he needs to be taught)

Not to be crude, but he wasn't even trusted to wipe himself after he used the toilet until he was at least in 2nd class of primary school

Despite all the obvious signs that things were wrong, his mother never took any steps to have him assessed or to expand his horizons, to take him to places where he can meet friends or take up a hobby. Almost his entire childhood has been spent inside his own house amusing himself, or interacting with his much older brothers.

It was the school who first called his mother into a meeting and pointed out how unhappy he was, and that they would like to have him assessed.

It took a year for the assessment to begin, and the entire time he was waiting, she did nothing to help him. My wife and I have been pleading with her to bring him to join in clubs, the scouts, coder dojo, karate, chess music, drama... anything but she always puts it off and then it never happens. I brought him into the coder dojo myself a few times to get him involved and she said she would continue to bring him in, but she never did. I called up the scouts and got their meeting times and told them his mother would call them back for more info, she never did. We have gotten her numbers for Tai Kwan Do classes that are specially run for children with social difficulties, but she never called them...

Because he has no friends and the other kids didn't like him, he has always hated school, and any excuse he could to take days off, he would. In his last year at primary school, he deliberately soiled his clothes and pretend he had Diahorrea to avoid school and he would have continued to do so except that my wife noticed and confronted him. He must have missed 30 or 40 school days due to sickness, and most of those were not genuine illnesses.

He's 13 years old and has never been reponsible for anything in his entire life. His mother treats him like he is a baby and nothing seems to make her realise that she's doing more harm than good.

My wife and I have had so many discussions with his mother about the help he needs. We live next to them and see them almost every day, but no matter what we do, no matter what we do to try to get him to take responsibility for himself, his mother seems to almost sabotage it. (not out of malice, but she's probably just in denial about the whole thing)

One of his problems is that he refuses to eat anything except 'chicken burgers', so his mother only ever cooks him chicken burgers. We regularly have him for dinner in our house and we always give him the same food as everyone else and he never eats it. Once we had to mind him for a week and after 5 days of urging him to try new things and was starting to enjoy it, he finallly got to the point where he would eat other kinds of food, and we explained to his mother what we had done, and the very first thing she did was cook him the same old chicken burger dinner and he instantly knew that she was a complete walkover and she'd let him do anything he likes.

The current situation is that he has started secondary school and he hates it there. In the first 3 months he has missed at least 15 days of school. He has been faking illness all this week. He has a cold, but it is not severe enough for him to be kept out of school. He is falling behind and life is only going to get harder and harder for him.

It's not strictly 'any of our business' but Its hard to watch his life go so wrong when a few simple changes could make an enormous difference.

Has anyone ever had to deal with anything like this
Any advice will be appreciated.

Leo12

I'm so so sorry to hear of this. This little boy is so lonely and unhappy and is obviously hating school if he has no friends. He hates his life and is so unhappy. My heart goes out to him, it really does. While I have no experience of this myself I have worked in schools and to be honest your mother-in law is neglecting her child and his needs immensely! I cannot believe she won't help the child and give him skills to help him in life. Its out and out neglect, simple as that. I have seen this in families whereby the youngest is kept deliberately a 'baby' because the mother wants company and/or she cannot face the fact that her child is growing up. You really need to intervene here, could you talk to the MIL one more time and/or talk to the school again? Has his assessment finally been complete and maybe there are support groups in your area who could advise on the situation and how to help him attain the necessary social skills to live and have a half decent life. You are right to be concerned and the boy is lucky to have you and his sister, especially living so close. Best of luck

bee06

The poor kid, I actually want to shake his mother. Has your wife been blunt with her mother and told her she is ruining her son's life?

strandroad

The mother needs a good dressing down, but if she can't be made to see it - you live next door, can you step in and do things she won't, such as take him to activities etc to broaden his world?

ardle1

This is a very sad story,
Is the Mum a big drinker, or if your not sure is she probably a secret drinker?

ABajaninCork

Is your MIL suffering from depression? From reading your OP, it might be a pointer.

Shrap

Oh my lord, I wouldn't know where to start giving you advice OP. Mainly because I know exactly how hard it is to get appropriate help for a child who has such emotional difficulties. My youngest was also assessed for ASD and found to be not on the spectrum, but they recommended so much help for him that I will be forever thankful. Until then, I had banged my head off the HSE brick walls to try and get him help for the previous 8 years. We have now gone private to a particularly good child psychologist to get him the help he needs in emotional regulation and social skills.

I'm telling you this because it may illustrate how hard it is even when the parents/parent is fully committed to looking for help for a child from the first signs of their problems.

To be honest, I'd be very, very concerned by his depression and talk of killing himself (of course you are, or you wouldn't be here..). This, to my mind (and I'm not a professional, but professionals finally recognised this in my son) is cause for immediate intervention. If he has been assessed, and the diagnosis is completed, there will be a report. Have you seen it? If not, then his mother must have it, although perhaps it hasn't been sent yet. Have you spoken to his mother about what the recommendations are for his social and emotional difficulties (this won't have been ignored by the ASD team - they're the sole reason he got past the screening process)?

One way or another, he has to be got into professional therapy ASAP. I'm afraid I can't recommend the HSE, but that's only because the psychology services for children are SO stretched that you tend to be put on a waiting list for a group who work with a child psychologist, but you may be in an area with better services. All I can say is that my son and myself have had some immediate results from having at last started working things out together with a fantastic professional, but it doesn't come cheap. And I mean SUPER expensive Worth every penny.

His mother will need just as much help btw. I don't think you could really form a plan of action about who to contact first (with a view to describing the situation as an emergency and your extreme worry about how disadvantaged he is being at home) until you see what the report has recommended. It's possible that there are some definite agencies named in the back of the report that you could call on his behalf.

If all else fails, go to a good GP and tell them everything. Demand help.

That boy is lucky to have you both on his side OP, but there's nothing you can do without intervention, and lots of it.

Shrap

Thought of more:

OP, I know how long it takes for an ASD assessment to complete. Is there a chance he is still in the process?

They will have had forms with many, many specific questions that would have been put to his teachers and his parents. These should have gone to you too, to my mind. Anyhow, they also will do a school visit and a home visit, and his mother will be interviewed a number of times, as will he. In my case, both parents were interviewed and so was my boyfriend as another significant person in my son's life. If the interviews haven't happened yet, you have a chance to get in there and express your concerns. Phone them up (the senior clinical psychologist on the team that are assessing him) and leave a message (I've never heard of one getting back to you within the week). Email him/her with something along the lines of your opening post. Get in there, and get the full picture into the report so the recommendations will be appropriate and fast.

That's if it isn't completed already. Good luck.

MagicMarker

To be honest, his mother isn't fit to raise this child. Is there no one you can report her to?

Littlekittylou

reluctant busybody wrote: »

Has anyone ever had to deal with anything like this
Any advice will be appreciated.

Personally no I have not. But The only thing I can think of is that this is not just the son's mental issue the woman has one too. Perhaps before he gets therapy she needs therapy to help her see that he needs therapy

I think the woman needs to be assessed in her own right. She might have issues. It's not uncommon. I think they might need a team to help. There is intensive therapy. But it helps to have a parent able to cope.

I would hold her responsible etc and yes she is letting the boy down. But I don't know if giving her a dress down is the answer. I think you need to inform professionals the mother needs help.

I think there are organizations for parents who have kids with special needs could you maybe ask another parent in a similar situation to talk with her?

It's tough to realize what the issue is I mean there is more going on there than just a child with an issue there is a family situation and it's tough to know where one issue ends and the other starts.

Shrap

reluctant busybody wrote: »

It's not strictly 'any of our business' but Its hard to watch his life go so wrong when a few simple changes could make an enormous difference.

Just on this note and adding to littlekittylou above here, this is your business because the boy is your brother in law, your wife's brother and her mother is letting this slide. She has some uncomfortable truths to wake up to - her son is not a pet who will stay eating chicken burgers and watching telly with her for ever. Things are changing already. You are living next door to an extremely unhappy child who in three short years or so will become an extremely unhappy young man, potentially towering above you all with more compounded social problems than he has now.

He has reached an age where his own behaviour can be challenged on quite a grown up basis (by a professional), but who's bringing him? Who's challenging the mother??

Sorry now, but this is absolutely your business. You are closely related to, and living next door to a boy who could very likely grow up with some dangerous social problems (to himself and others) if he doesn't get help. You can't let this slide as well.

LegacyUser

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your replies

Regarding his mother, She's not a bad woman, she doesn't drink and she tries her best, but she is probably the worst procrastinator I have ever met. When her husband was alive, he used to give her the occasional proverbial kick up the arse to get her to do things, since he died, her (almost) self paralysing character has nothing to counter it.

At the moment, she is at the beginning of a new relationship (her first since her husband died) and I am hopeful that at some stage, he will be able to motivate her to get things done, He's a nice man, It is a confounding factor however, as, while this relationship could be good for my brother in law in the medium term to have a father figure who can do things with him and encourage him, at the moment, it is distracting his mother even more from her sons needs.

We have had many very frank discussions with his mother about how urgent the situation is with him. We have openly said to her how serious it is when any child acts out in this way and that it is a cry for help. She agreed with us and promised to change.

I'm fairly sure that the assessment is over. It was mainly to assess if he was on the Autistic spectrum and they concluded that he didn't meet the criteria but he does have Dyspraxia. He won't be getting any support hours at school but he will be allowed to use a keyboard for long exams and long writing assignments. I haven't read the actual report, but i think they concluded that most of his emotional difficulties related to his fathers death so I don't know if there is any HSE follow-up or a care worker assigned to him. I'll have to double check this and i'll try to get my hands on the report to read it myself.

She started to bring him to private swimming lessons to build up strength and muscle tone for his dyspraxia but the swimming fell apart at the first hurdle (not that he was doing some kind of wierd swim hurdling class, but the instructor cancelled a few lessons and she never followed it up) . Her favourite words are 'I must' as in 'I must call the swimming instructor back..'

The problem now, is that the blatantly obvious signs have subsided, he's not openly talking about killing himself anymore, so his mother thinks things are getting better, when it's clear that he's just internalising his feelings more, and the fact that he's trying to get out of going to school means he's trying to avoid his problems by staying at home where he is comfortable and can distract himself. In reality, he's only making things harder for hiimself in the long term.

It seems that she needs to be pushed into acting.

One of my wife's uncles works at the school. I think I'll ask her to call him and ask him to arrange a meeting with my mother in law between her and his year head. It was the primary school that pushed for the assessment and arranged it for her, perhaps his secondary school will be able to give her some kind of motivation or plan of action to help him enjoy his time at school more, and help him with his studies. Hopefully they would be able to convince her to bring him to a professional for help before he gets much older.

Since he has gotten a bit older, I have been having chats with him where I try to encourage him to take responsibility for himself. He is treated like a baby by his mother, I tell him about all the things I used to do when I was his age and that he's capable of doing these things too and he can initiate activities himself without waiting for his mother to do it for him. It seems like I'm lecturing him sometimes though and I don't want him to hate being at home as much as he hates being at school.

I'm going to get in touch with the scouts in our area and bring him to some meetings myself. Scouts should help him experience new things and meet new people. Hopefully he will like it there.

zoobizoo

Just a thought but if the mother is reluctant to bring him anywhere, could you guys do it?

Sign him up for a morning class / scouts on Saturday morning and bring him to it and then out for food afterwards.

I bring my niece out sometimes - discovered that she was being bullied at school, something her folks were unaware of. Sometimes it takes an uncle or an aunt to intervene in a helpful way.

LegacyUser

I have no advice to offer, but I do have to say hats off to you for putting so much effort and care into your brother-in-law, he's lucky to have you on his side and I hope there's some improvement soon.