Joanne

My sister asked if we could watch her son for a week. She is a
single mother, works and he is out of school for one week before
camp begins. We live in neighboring states. My ds is almost 6; his
cousin is turning 9 this week. I understand and am empathetic to
why his cousin acts out. He can be overly aggressive in his play
and he is sometimes even inappropriate when undressed. (I am not
sure but at times I wonder if he was sexually abused by one of his
older foster brothers years ago. I explored the topic with his
mother but she has otehr explanations for his behavior.)

We have really worked hard as a family to get our ds to try to use
his words rather than act out pshysically (hit, push,etc). I talked
with our ds to see if he was interested in having his cousin come.
He loves palying with this cousin and was definite that he wanted
him here. When I tried to talk with ds about my concerns of his
cousin being too rough, my ds said that is his cousin, he doesn't
care. (Our ds will alwasy minimize whenever he gets hurt
accidently: falls, bangs himself, etc.)

I am writing because I am finding it difficult to try to parent our
ds with an unschooling approach while having to make so many limtis
with this older, stronger, heavier, mroe aggressive and impulsive
child. He doesn't respect limtis well and needs to be reminded
frequently.

I need some suggestions about how to handle this. This cousin will
be here until Thursday. My son is already unhappy that he is
leaving and wants him to come back and stay over again. Regardless
of this visit, this is my sister's child and we will have contact
with them in the future.

My husband was molested by cousin(s) when he was a child. We both
feel that we must watch them ALL the time. We intervene when cousin
is being to threatening or rough which happens quite a bit during
the day. Cousin initiates pushing him and then my ds gets caught up
in the "game". OUr ds continues to sleep in our bedroom at night so
they do sleep in different rooms in the evening.

Please help me unschool in this situation.

Joanne
Lake Carmel, NY