Unasked and Unanswered

The child looked bewildered and lost as he entered my room. His two saucer-like eyes asked questions that his limited vocabulary did not allow him to ask.  Was he being brought to me for some mischief that he did not know he did ? Or was he here because of some reason that he would not even understand?

I looked inquiringly at the teacher, who seemed equally at a loss for words.  So I decided to initiate the conversation. The child refused to open up initially, and answered in monosyllables.  Then the teacher filled me in.  Apparently, the child had overheard a conversation between his parents where the father said that they would not send him to school, that he would teach him at home, as he was not studying properly.  The mother had also refused to buy the child some material that the child was required to bring to school for some project.

On gentle prompting, the child started contributing to our questions, and said that the previous night, his father had hit his mother while they were arguing about him.  The child went off to his room, closed the door and cried himself to sleep. He is now wondering whether he is the cause of all the misery at home!

How do you explain relationship dynamics to an eight-year-old boy?  Would he be able to relate to the situation if I tell him that adults also fight, and sometimes they fight ugly?

There is scant respect; no listening skills are employed, there are no boundaries, and it is all about a power struggle.

For the boy, all that mattered was how much was he responsible for the conflict.  For the adults, what other messages their irresponsible behavior conveyed was of least importance.  There was no way I could talk to them about healthy parenting. The partnership itself needed working on! There was no respect or dignity between the parents. All that was evident was the blame game, where they would not even think shared parenting was an important component of healthy and effective parenting. 

If there is unconditional love, respect for human dignity and acceptance of a person's frailties, then who says nurturing any relationship would be a problem? But here, the mother's unmet needs and the father's frustrations resulted in a bewildered child who may end up carrying the scars of dysfunctional parenting for the rest of his life.