I have a niece who has two sons, both of whom have been “difficult” in their own ways. It has been my observation for many years–and everyone else in the family’s --that she is easy-going to a fault, and does not discipline them at all.
The oldest is gifted, and has issues with arrogance. Nevertheless, I have a great relationship with him. The youngest seems to me to suffer from ADHD or ADD–I don’t pretend to know the difference–and although a sweet kid in many ways is incredibly difficult to deal with. He cannot sit still for a minute. He does not listen. I get along with both of them better than any of the other adults in the family. We play board games, I discipline them and they accept it, I have a particular rapport with the older child, but younger one really does have a problem, IMHO.
They recently spent a week and a half with us. My H observed that the younger one could concentrate when presented with a single thing, like an explanatory plaque, but lost it when there were several things competing for his attention. Honestly, H and I wondered how he could function in a classroom. WE both wondered if the school had ever asked that he be evaluated for one of the conditions mentioned above. I know that these things may be over-diagnosed, but honestly, he is totally out of control.
Have you discussed this with the younger’s parent? That is the person who has to agree to have him evaluated. If she balks for not being happy at the idea of medicating her kid (which I think is a common attitude), you could tell her that not all kids with ADHD/ADD are medicated (I have one who isn’t), but that it is still helpful for teachers to have the information, and help him develop skills to compensate.
Having been on the other side of this conversation, I can tell you that by loving your great nephews unconditionally you are already doing the most amazing thing you can do. Your niece is probably well aware of the issues with her sons, and must be extremely grateful for your support, and for giving her a week and a half break!
Most of the things you’re saying “she does not discipline them at all”, “he’s gifted” , “he’s arrogant”, “they’re difficult”, “seems to suffer from”, “incredibly difficult to deal with”, “he does not listen”, “he has a problem”…are opinions.
Opinions that the children’s parents might not share.
Opinions that may or may not be based in fact.
As a great aunt…your capacity to correct how the parents are raising their kids is exactly…Zero.
As a great aunt…your input might be seen as really really nasty and you might not see the kids much anymore. If that’s your goal, by all means…tell the mom how to raise her kids. LOL. I don’t even know the kids, I’m not the mom…and my protective mom hackles are raising at your attitude. You seem to have all the answers.
You might just be trying to be helpful, but I doubt it’s going to come across that way. If the children have issues…it’s not news to them. You don’t have the responsibility or the authority to make these kind of judgments and inquiries.
My advice: Love the kids unconditionally, and firmly zip your lip. This is the most help you can be.
I think it’s wonderful that your nephews spent a week and a half with you- that says a lot about your relationship with your niece and her children. I also think that once these children enter school, any behavioral concerns will be brought up by the teachers… and this will happen quickly, if not already. If there are no behavior problems while in school, that tells you a lot. Remember that your niece may not want to share this with you, and that is OK.
For now I would focus on and praise the positives. For example… if you are all eating a meal together, you might turn to one child and say “I love how you are sitting so nicely ( even if he only sits appropriately for 1-2 minutes).” If one does something nice for his brother you might say, “Thank you for helping him tie his shoe” or “Thank you for explaining so clearly how to play the game.”
I don’t know how old the boys are, but most kids respond favorably to praise and positive feedback. Play your own game of “catch them being good.”
ADD- attention deficit disorder, ADHD adds hyperactivity. Giftedness can be confused with them, testing would distinguish the two and determine if both are present.
Arrogance issues, totally out of control, hmm. Given your attitude and not knowing the difference between two disorders you want to apply it is no wonder.
Looks like some dysfunctional family dynamics is going on. I like the “catch them being good” idea. Look at all of the positives you can muster. Somehow I don’t believe they are all that out of control.
Be a positive influence in their lives. They sound intrinsically good. Please do not put down their intelligence- apparent arrogance could be impatience with the pace of the world or trying to show having a redeeming quality when insecure.
Childhood is difficult, especially when not average. Let their school system do the diagnosing et al. You do not have enough information, both about what you know about the subjects and them.
My first question is how old they are. If they’re old enough to be in school, then the odds are that a teacher has probably already had the conversation with the parents, and they’re trying to deal with it in some fashion.
If the youngest, in particular, is too young to be in school, then I suggest you do pretty much what I would do as a teacher:
Don't ever attempt a diagnosis of any type.
Document the specific behaviors. As in "When Tommy tried to put together a puzzle, he got annoyed and walked away after about 3 minutes." Give your niece the particular information needed for a diagnosis.
Separate the behavior from the kid. The behavior may be annoying, but it sounds as though the little boy is sweet. Make sure that you document, as well, all those positive behaviors. It will help your niece present a balanced picture if and when a teacher mentions his behavior.
Hold back until school has started. If and when your niece talks about the conversation with a teacher, you can tell her what you observed during the boys' visit.
As to the older nephew and arrogance: There will be someone brighter in his classroom; that’s inevitable. It will take care of itself at some point in his life. If you can, once again, separate the kid from the behavior-- see the good that’s in there somewhere-- it would certainly help.
Most kids with ADD/ADHD are able to focus (usually hyper focus) on certain areas or activities of interest. So that’s pretty typical.
If they are in school, it’s not very likely it will go unnoticed, and suggestions of assessment will be made. Your job is to be there to say he is still of value, still loveable, and still a part of the family. Too often, we look at ADHD students as being defective or intentionally disorderly. Can you imagine living, as a child, a life where everyone else sees an orderly village green on the square, all tidy – and you see a ginormous shopping mall with four concerts going on in the food court? They need someone who can accept them as they are, and help them learn to live and adapt to THAT, not try fruitlessly to be something they can never sustain.
I too was wondering how old these kids are. It makes a difference in terms of expectation of their abilities and how to handle them and their mom. However, I agree with the others who have said you really should say nothing. I’m sure the teachers at school have brought these things up to the parents. Its just not your place and could harm your relationship with the mom. Do what you can for the children when you see them.
Are you 100% positive that the boys have not been evaluated and diagnosed? The parents may just not talk about it.
As the parent of an adult child who was (and still is) incredibly difficult, I cannot even state how many times relatives thought they knew more about our son than we did. Yrs ago I was told by a family member that I didn’t know how to parent. It didn’t matter that he had an alphabet soup of labels; they could fix him. We knew that we could help him function, but he wasn’t broken. Nothing would make him function like other kids his age bc he wasn’t like them. Even now at 25, he struggles. He misses social cues. He succumbs to extreme anxiety. He talks too loud and sometimes says completely inappropriate comments. He misses boundaries.
It could just be that when you are around the mom she is exhausted and takes the opportunity to breathe.
My kids are long grown. It’s been my experience over the years that my sisters and sisters-in-law and a couple of close cousins, all with younger children than mine, asked my advice when they wanted it, especially if they thought I’d done a decent job with my own. Not all of them asked. One sister-in-law called a lot. One brother did, too.
Usually the ones that asked for advice thought their kids were similar to mine, so I might have ideas. We have generations of quirky in our family. For some reason I seem to be the repository of the oral history of our family. Sometimes my relatives called to ask if any other kids in the family were ever like theirs. Always the answer was “yes” and sometimes that was very helpful.
A very roundabout way of saying wait till your niece asks for your help
I have a daughter with several learning disorders. Lack of discipline doesn’t cause executive functioning issues. There are interventions for these types of disorders, but good old-fashioned discipline isn’t one of them.
Are you sure the issues haven’t been noted? We had relatives who talked behind our backs, who thought they knew our daughter better than we did, and who offered unsolicited advice about the right way to parent. We didn’t discuss her issues with most of them for many years because we didn’t appreciate being talked about and, frankly, it wasn’t any of their business. We only shared it after she was formally diagnosed because her learning disorders are genetic. You might want to consider whether or not your nephews’ parents, teachers, and primary care providers have flagged issues to follow and have just chosen not to share that information.
The cousin we thought had out of the ordinary anxiety as a young kid had been under a psychiatrists care for several years before her parents decided to confide in us (She is now a young adult and is the most well-adjusted and socially adept person you could imagine- Yay for professional help at an early age). The nephew we thought had some significant developmental delays entered college at age 14 (yes, you can be delayed in some areas but near genius in others). The neighbors kid who spent a lot of time hanging around our house and had severe speech problems in elementary and middle school is off to Harvard next week.
You don’t know what the parents are doing, and frankly, it’s none of your business. But it is terribly stressful to be dealing with kids who aren’t developing along the “normal” curve and to have to work with the full- on menu of interventions AND have to answer to everyone in the family with an opinion. Assuming the kids are not being homeschooled or living in a compound in a cult, they will be interacting with pediatricians, audiologists, nurse practitioners, dentists, etc. in the course of their childhoods. One or more of them will suggest evaluations of some kind if they observe anything that’s developmentally off-kilter (my neighbors speech issues were first diagnosed by a dentist who had just been to a conference on palate abnormalities.)
So be a loving and affectionate presence to these kids and if/when you are told that the kids are getting “extra support” in some fashion, look surprised and say “We love your kids so much, so happy they are getting what they need”.
One can set limits when the kids are in one’s home, but not when they leave. Sounds like a set up to burn bridges unless someone is prepared to do an intervention, which doesn’t sound called for in this situation.
I was a parent of a gifted (and somewhat difficult) child who had received a lot of advice about disciplining him from friends and family. People were wondering why I don’t let him cry himself to sleep, why I argue with him instead of just telling him what to do, why I don’t let him go without dinner if he refuses to eat something (he’s had sensory issues with food), why he seems to never be punished at all…There was a lot of yelling involved, I’m sorry to say, but never in the presence of others.
Now he’s a HS junior and just about the perfect kid - great student, smart, kind, mature beyond his years. Now people are wondering what we did right.
Not saying you have a similar situation, just something to think about.
Roycroftmom, if the OP can’t handle ten days with these kids than the answer to “can you take care of the kids” is “sorry, I just won’t be able to, too much on my plate”, NOT a full on medical diagnosis which the OP is not qualified to give.
Being a back up babysitter over the summer- even for ten days- does not allow you to weigh in on the issues and interventions that the parents are either doing, not doing, should be doing.
Does the OP really feel qualified to make a diagnosis? Does the OP know how Bi-Polar manifests itself in young kids, or how an auditory processing disorder might become evident? Does the OP understand how a thyroid condition is diagnosed and why things that might appear to be behavioral/psychological might in fact be the early stages of treatment of some glandular/endocrine issues? Does the OP know that what is interpreted to be “laid back” behavior by the mom might be the advice of professionals as to how best handle an anxiety order without escalating the kids acting out?
I just cannot imagine getting diagnostic advice from a lay person if I was already spending three afternoons a week working with the OT/PT/Speech/Psychologists/Special Ed professionals on my kids health team. And since the OP has no idea what the issues are with the kids- time to back off.
That is one seriously offensive post. Equating homeschoolers to members if a cult who deprive their children access to medical care and interventions reveals ignorance of the majority of the homeschooling population.
The point is…not that homeschoolers are like those in a cult. The point is…these great nephews interact with a lot of others on a very frequent basis who could better provide insight into how the attention issues the OP notices might affect learning…and social interactions…etc.
Some…not all…but SOME…homeschool students do not have these types of interactions with others.
But that is not the essence of the OP query…in my opinion…unless she is specifically asked…she should NOT offer suggestions. I’m a professional in a special education field…and I did not offer unsolicited advice to family or friends. And if someone asked…I would tell them where they could,go for advice and help…not offer that advice and help myself.
