June 2000

When I began to do family counseling years ago, people were not as open about counseling issues as they are now. I remember one of the first families I worked with gave me very little information during our counseling sessions. And they became quite a puzzle to me. Joey was a third grade student who had done very well in school. But suddenly his behavior in the classroom had changed dramatically.

He had changed from being a confident and successful student, to acting more like a baby. He began talking like a baby. He could not attend to his schoolwork. And he became very silly with his classmates. His teacher had referred Joey to me for counseling so I began working with him and his parents. After meeting four or five times with his parents I had no idea about what was going on.

The parents were not honest with me so I didn’t have enough information to help them. But after a few more sessions of dragging their feet they began to tell me what has happening in their family. The parents told me there had been a lot of personal friction in their relationship during the last year. And both of them were loud and had been doing a lot of arguing about issues. And one of the issues the mother had was the poor grooming of her husband.

The husband told me he resented his wife’s crude remarks. She frequently called him, "Fat, bald and ugly."

I remember that we worked on some techniques and strategies to help the parents get along better. And after a few more sessions with the parents, things between them began to improve and they became more open with me. But Joey’s baby behavior continued.

In the counseling sessions we now focused less on the spouse relationship and more on Joey’s issues. After a lot of soul searching, Joey’s mother began to talk about how frustrated she was with her husband. She said she had built up a lot of anger and was getting her anger out on her husband and also on Joey.

Mother began to talk about her favorite way of dealing with her own frustration. She said that when she was about to explode she would go after her husband and tell him he was, "Fat, bald and ugly." And usually those remarks would start an argument. And then she could get out her frustration.

Mother also began to talk about taking her frustration out on Joey. Joey was a very handsome eight-year- old boy. And Mother was aware of trying to put him down when she was frustrated. She said she used to tell Joey that he was a handsome boy now. But when he grew up he was going to look just like his father: "Fat, bald and ugly."

Joey never verbalized this to me but he acted like he believed his mother’s threats. And it sounded like he didn’t want to grow up and look like his dad. In fact, his behavior said that instead of getting older each day he wanted to get younger so he could remain handsome and never look like his dad.

We never knew for certain that this was the reason for Joey’s regression. But like most counseling cases when the parents resolved their conflict, the tension in the house went away. And when there was peace and security in the family Joey began to "act his age" again.

Unfortunately, in our communities there are a lot of adults like Joey who got stuck at a younger age and never really grow up. There age gets older every year. But their behavior remains very childish and dependent.

One of my favorite questions I ask kids is, "If you had a choice would you prefer to be older, younger or the same age?" This question usually leads to the benefits of being older or younger in a family.

Most older kids in the family complain that they have too much responsibility and get blamed for everything that happens in the family. And they forget that they have more privileges than their younger siblings.

And most younger kids in the family complain that they don’t get enough privileges. And they forget that they have much less responsibility.

Kids need to be aware of the blend of the privileges and responsibilities at every age. One way of encouraging children to grow with their age is to make sure you treat them differently as they grow older. Some parents use the child’s birthday as the time when they change their privileges and their responsibilities at home. And they tell the child, "Now that you are six you are going to have different privileges and different responsibilities."

And when the oldest child complains about having too much responsibility in the family you can remind him of the privileges he has that his younger siblings don’t have.