Awaiting the phone call

The whole of Thursday (my off day), I was waiting for a call from school. I was mentally prepared for a complaint against me by the father of one of my student clients. This primary 5 boy was referred to counselling by his form teacher last year for making small cuts on his hand. His mother claimed that he was stressed out from exams. Mum also shared with me that he often threatens to hurt himself if he does not get what he wants. We discussed and wondered about the anger within him and mum also shared her fears that the boy may be unduly worried that his parents are heading for divorce. She revealed that there is often much argument between her and her husband. During a more recent conversation she spoke about her trip to India praying for the child to be less rude to her.

Yes the boy is a perfectionist trying to excel in everything, hence the stress, but from my engagement with him I also understand more about his family background. The family is quite well off and travels often visiting rich relatives in Australia and India. The boy admires his father, apparently father reads widely and has a wall to wall shelf of books, father does very well in school, father this and father that. AND, father also mentions often that his son (the boy) is the head of the household when he is not around, a role which he takes seriously. The trigger to the boy's angry outbursts is usually when the womenfolk , ie. his elder sister and mother ignore him or are slow to agree with him or abide by his requests.

During the recent one month break mum brought him and sister to India for a grand tour of temples. The boy informed me that they visited 30 temples (could well have been an exaggeration though). I told the boy I was really impressed by his mum's devotion and commitment and wondered what mum prayed for mainly. The boy replied promptly that she prayed for the family's happiness. We then discussed what for mum was the family's happiness. He wasn't sure but when asked what actions of his would make mum happy, all he could think of was him doing well in exams and performing on stage. He couldn't think of anything else. Ok, I then asked him what actions of his will make his mum unhappy, to which he replied when he is angry and shouts at her. I then explored further (which can be rather tricky because children often do not like such probing and I have to stop or refrain depending on their body language) as to how he feels when seeing mum being unhappy. He thought very hard and with a shrug said "nothing". I persisted and showed him a chart with lots of feeling words. From a long list he picked "guilty". I then went on to affirm his good values etc etc.

Actually from what the boy shared with me over several sessions, I form the impression that the father is very male chauvinistic and although mum mentioned about the frequent argument between the couple, I suspect it is the husband who has angry outbursts most of the time. Although in my conversation with mum I have suggested that she advised her husband to refrain from mentioning about his son assuming the role of head of household, I doubt she even dared to bring that up to her husband.

The scope of a school counsellor does not include family therapy, although one can stretch the limit to include some advice when talking to parents. As mentioned in the consent form my contact with the family is the mother.

So on Wednesday I got the boy to work on some Activity Worksheets entitled good and bad habits, starting with his personal habits and moving on to family habits. So he has to draw good habits that he practises before moving on to the not so good ones. Then I got him to work on a worksheet with the following wordings on the left side of the page "Bad Habits can become very difficult problems! My family has a problem that is hard to talk about (draw the problem). The right side of the page is fully filled with a huge dream bubble. Below the bubble, these are the words "This is what I wish could happen (draw and fold).

Our friend drew 2 pictures, one depicting a table filled with plates of food (he said his family overeats) and another a picture of 4 stick figures with speech bubbles containing the word "shouting". He then shared that father shouts the most. In his dream bubble he drew 4 smiling stick figures and a drum. His wish was for the family to stop shouting and the drum describes his wish for everyone to sit down quietly and listen to him beating his traditional drum. Oh, he ever demonstrated to me once and the rythmn was so enchanting.

I asked whether he would like to show the worksheet to his parents. He said he would and I encouraged him. When he left the room I reviewed the wording of the worksheet "my family has a problem....". Will the parents take offence? Will the parents accuse me of trying to influence the child into thinking the parents have problems? Whatever the consequence I still feel that the parents must wake up to the environment their children are brought up in.

No one called. Maybe not yet or maybe the mother stopped him from showing his father the activity worksheet.