Parents’ wide latitude in raising child sometimes worrisome

I am a 78-year-old great-grandmother of a 4-year-old child that I believe is being mistreated by my grandson and his live-in girlfriend, whom he perceives as a wonderful woman and a great disciplinarian. She has a 6-year-old of her own and she professes to have been disciplining her child since his first birthday, and he is just thriving and she is very proud of him and his expertise in school, sports, etc. My great-granddaughter is perceived as an out-of-control menace and needs to be saved from herself.

My husband and I are appalled with the treatment by this couple. We have witnessed some of the punishments several times when we visit California. Excessive timeouts, washing out of mouths with soap, having to eat every last bite of what is on her plate, removing every privilege from playing with her toys, no TV, no books. Also, on this last visit I noticed that my great-granddaughter has no physical contact with my grandson's housemate. There is no kissing or hugging, no tucking into bed at night.

As I write this, I realize that all this may not be anything to worry about but it is the manner in which the discipline is carried out and the fact that this clever, smart, loving, child has been reduced to talking only about her "bad behavior" and is scared to death. If you have any suggestions, I would be most grateful. -- S.M., Las Vegas

It seems I get a letter like this once or twice a year. Every time I answer it, I feel like I want to begin with an apology because I fear I'm going to frustrate you right along with whatever encouragement and light I might offer.

Your situation is very, very delicate.

It's gripping, really, to consider the incompetency, cruelty and even evil that an adult can do to a child without these wrongs being legally actionable. Of the list you presented above, only one item strikes me as a legitimate child protective services referral, that being washing a child's mouth out with soap. But the remaining items on the list are well within the latitude that a free country affords parents in choices of childrearing strategies.

I'm curious if the child's grandparents are in the picture, and if they have witnessed similar things and share your concern? I ask because they would be potential allies in whatever strategy you decide upon.

You have three choices, and each entails one or more significant risks:

If you are lucky enough to have a close relationship and exceptional rapport with your grandson, you can deal with this issue "straight up," as it were. You can sit down with him, absent his mate, and tell him that you find yourself very uncomfortable with certain disciplinary choices he's making, including the choices he's making to grant authority to his mate as disciplinarian.

The risk here is that you can't know for sure what rapport a relationship possesses until that rapport is tested. If you overestimate his maturity, his ego-strength, his ability to trust you, etc., then he will become defensive. He will see you as an antagonist or even enemy. In a flash, his mate will join him in this narrative, and this might cost you access to your great-granddaughter. This will potentially cost your great-grandaughter the one competent adult in her life, and that would be costly indeed.

You can decide there is sufficient evil here, actionable or not, that you are called to take action even at the risk of losing. That is, you call CPS. You file for custody. The risk here is that, as you have presented the story, I don't see a quid pro quo scenario that is legally winnable. And again, all you'd affect is robbing your great-granddaughter of you.

Which leaves you with the choice of silently suffering the knowledge of these injustices to preserve a "bridge" of hope, encouragement and sanity for the child. The role you fill I call One Competent Adult. The OCA sometimes cannot change a child's circumstances or sufferings. But, at minimum, the OCA can, over time, affirm the child's reality. The message that saves the sanity of suffering children is, "What's happening to you is real, I know it's happening, you have a right to your anger, fear and sadness about it, and you don't deserve it."

She's 4, so of course you won't be repeating the above speech verbatim. For now it will be an implicit message in the constancy of your love and healthy interactions with her. The OCA is forced to take the long view of advocacy, sacrificing likely futile attempts at immediate rescue.

I don't envy the maddening frustration of such a terrible dilemma. But I'm glad the little girl has you in her corner.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns also appear on Sundays in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Contact him at 227-4165 or skalas@reviewjournal.com.