I FEAR FOR MY GRANDCHILD’S SAFETY

DEAR Bel,

I HAVE recently found out about a dreadful problem within my family. My daughter, an only child, and I have always been very close. She is married with a nine-year-old son. Luckily I have been in a position to offer a home to my daughter, sonin-law and grandson, leaving them mortgage-free, and they have put their money into improving the property.

I know I tend to see my grandson through rose-tinted glasses, but he has always been a very happy boy, even if he has a slight tendency to be on the sensitive side.

In August we all went on holiday and had a wonderful time together apart from one incident, which now seems to be overshadowing family life. My son-in-law smokes (and drinks) and although he has given up from time to time in the past, he never seems able to quit completely. On holiday he was smoking outside my grandson’s bedroom and the child caught his father in the act.

Since that time he has been a changed boy. He has become withdrawn, does not want to do any after school/weekend activities, or play with friends. I felt absolutely devastated when my daughter told me that my grandson has told them both how anxious he feels.

Please, do you have any advice on a way forward to help?

PATRICIA

FOR grandparents (especially, perhaps, grandmothers?), it is normal to worry about grandchildren, and yet I confess I’m puzzled that you use the phrase ‘dreadful problem’ and then go on to describe a situation that to the outsider doesn’t seem ‘dreadful’ at all.

Forgive me, but ‘devastated’ seems a somewhat exaggerated word to use in the circumstances.

It makes me wonder what unspoken issues might be hidden within your letter.

On the face of it, a nine-year-old seeing his father with a cigarette really doesn’t seem enough to cause the kind of behavioural change you describe.

‘Caught in the act’ of taking a drag is hardly an appalling betrayal of parenting values, although it does seem very odd indeed that Dad should be puffing away outside the child’s bedroom.

Of course, if you and/or your daughter had created a big fuss about his smoking in the past, leaving no doubt as to your stern judgment on the habit, then the boy could certainly have picked that up.

That might explain his shock to see Dad perhaps breaking a solemn promise to give up.

Has the smoking (and drinking) caused rows? It’s usual for children to be terrified of their parents splitting up.

In other words, it may not be ‘the smoking incident’ itself which is worrying the boy, but the response to it by Mum and Granny.

It can’t be helped by the fact your son-in-law has been absent and you and your daughter are not only very close, but live together.

Try to relax. At nine, your grandson is still growing, still developing, and has much learning and socialising ahead of him.

He needs calm, not catastrophising.