I wonder if anyone can help.
I am not a technical person in this field. I am looking for comments and advice.
I read an article in Sunday Times about 20 years ago. It described a symptom of a mother who was obsessed in caring her children. Her children were normal. But she created many issues psychologically that there were problems with the children. In summary, she created a problem so that she could protect her children eg. food allergy, various illness etc.
The reason why I raise this issue is because my sister in law is , in my view, suffering this type of obsession. She has got two PhD's in Physics and Nutrition at UK top universities. She is certainly very clever academically. Her only job in the industry was a short spell in engineering research. She became full time housewife soon after birth of her first baby. It was evident that she wanted to ensure perfect environment for her children. This is again normal expectation from parents, I suppose.
As expected, her children have been overprotected since birth. In a way, it is rather normal for a lot of mother. However, she reckoned that her children were allergic to certain food eg gluten, egg, dairy etc. She did not allowed them to eat those food. Also they were given plenty of supplements ensuring they get the right nutrients. Again this may not be the main problem. She even told her doctor that her son was autistic - slightly.
She did not allowed her children to attend any funeral even the very closed family funerals. eg her parents and sister etc. Her reason was - she did not want her children to be upset.
She also control their routines in their daily life. One can argue that it is normal for parent to organise outside school activities for the kids. The main difference is that in her case, she would control everything. Bed time was strict even in holiday time. When her children were playing board games with other kids, she would interfere to make sure that her children would not be defeated,
As her kids were growing up, she wanted to move house so that she would be closer to her children.
To cut the long story short, her control obsession has given problem to one of her sons. He is basically also clever eg he could read instruction manual when he was less than 3 years' old, Because he has been over-protected in a bubble. He is now suffering many psychological issues when facing the real world.
He went to university two years ago, The first year was fine because he was staying in the hall of residence. He was very frequently visited by his mum.
The problem started in the second year when he was sharing a house with other students. She laid down various ground rules for all house mates eg recycle bin, cleaning rota etc. Naturally students are rebellion by nature. It means all rules were out of the window. It also means that her son was under tremendous pressure from both sides. In the end, she decided to take her out of the university because she reckoned it was too much pressure for him to handle.
Now he is staying at home and it is driving him into depression. It is rather sad. In my view, the main problem is the mother who is extremely reluctant to accept any advice. because she knows that she is academically brilliant. It means she can always find a solution through her research for any issues she may have. But applying a theory on a human being is not as straight forward as it sounds. There are plenty human factors as well.
In summary, my sister in law's behaviour is exactly what was described in the article in the Sunday Times 20 years ago. I wonder anyone has the experience in this area. I would love to hear from them for their experience and advice.
Thanks a lot for reading
