There is no question that the best people to bring up children are their parents, but too often unhappy families, broken homes and other family problems mean that their children are just not given the attention that they badly need. This is where a tutor can help. He is not a nanny, nor an au pair, but a mentor who can teach children how to be fine citizens and at the same time to learn well. 

I was innocently landed with just such a situation in Chicago with a non-functioning family with three sons aged between 12 and 16. It was, I soon learned, a nightmare situation. There was constant friction between them all and they didn't seem to like each other. I think they put on their best show for me when I first arrived. 

I was with the family for three months in the summer and, although I took great pains to make certain that the sons did not disrespect their parents, the boys mercifully took to me and the four of us really led a separate life from the parents and I managed to help them with their studies, although in fact they were not very behind in these. The main problem was their absolute lack of acceptable social behaviour; naturally they thought all human relations were a combat, in the way that it constantly was between their parents. The children’s social behaviour improved to the point where they became respectable citizens and their parents could then be proud of them.

Such a success was it that the parents have invited me back every holiday for two years and I have managed to get the children to continue to respect their parents despite the obvious animosity between the generations.  What had been a nightmare situation had now become bearable.

It has been an extremely difficult assignment, but one that I have been very happy to alleviate. NW