Painful Parenting

What a miserable, dreadful tragedy. To lose a child on the cusp of becoming an adult. That twilight zone of hormonal-induced confusion and emotional insecurity. A young boy, fifteen, quiet and not given to making friends. He has a twin sister, perhaps she is the gregarious one. But he hides himself away, seeks solace in an activity that requires no other human presence to satisfy his curiosity, his enquiry.

He's become an Internet gaming aficionado, where on line he is anonymous and is able to conduct himself casually without revealing anything about himself, taking comfort and pleasure in doing there what he will, playing video games that require him to be someone else, not the he whom displeases himself. Trouble is, his constant sequestration troubles his parents.

Although his preoccupation has become the new normal, to his parents it's a troubling indication that their efforts to socialize their son, to introduce him to values that they feel will enhance his life, have failed. Their son's dedication to playing Internet video games is an obvious symptom that something vital is absent from his life, and they don't quite know how to handle the situation.

They've spoken with him about this on a constant basis. They worry incessantly. The end result of which has always been frustration to their child and to them. Nothing is resolved, and he returns to his favourite and only preoccupation. Leaving them irritated and helpless, not knowing where to turn, what to do, to turn things around, interest him in other engaging things.

He has no interest in organized sports. He is a lonely boy and not given to great emotional expressions. They attempt once again to convince him that there is more to life than a computer screen and the action available on the videos that so attract him, that these are only meagre stand-ins for what should really matter in his life, to be involved with other people, doing things together.

The last discussion they embarked upon with him, deteriorated as all the others did, into confrontation, accusation and despair. And anger, an anger so dense and so desperately volatile that he tore out of the house and pedalled off on his bicycle. He'd return, they consoled themselves, once his anger with them subsided. So they waited. And waited.

And their boy simply did not return. His deep resentment of their interference of the one thing in life that offered him pleasure and escape, from his intolerable everyday life was indelible and not to be placated so readily. He would not return. He would make them sorry they made him miserable. That would teach them a lesson.

And he was certainly right there. They've been taught the lesson of their lives. At the cost of his. His life is now forfeit, gone, faded into nothingness, and they can only theorize, hopelessly, helplessly, that he did not really mean to die, he just got carried away by his emotions, blindly striking out, confused and unhappy.

There is no consolation for them.