I was hired as home tutor by a Greek lawyer in Manhattan married to a Connecticut socialite to try to help their unruly son, Basil Jr. Neither had enough time for him.

Basil had been unmanageable at school and was about to be thrown out. He was way behind the other boys and girls in his class. This was clearly going to be a challenging assignment for me.

Luckily Basil immediately took to me; the first problem I had to deal with was that Basil would not go to sleep; his mother spent a long time with him every night, trying to get him to wind down; this enraged her as she was missing cocktail time with her husband, or often with their guests as well, as they entertained a lot. The first night that I was staying with the family I got Basil to sleep almost immediately by telling him stories and I only had to stay with him for three nights; after that he went to sleep every night on his own.

But it seemed, as I was able to get Basil to sleep very quickly, I might be able to convince him to behave in general and particularly at school. I realized that the root of the problem was that his parents really did not have time for him – if indeed the interest; they just expected him to be well-behaved and do his work well at school. They did not realize that this takes input from the parents.

Basil and I became tremendous friends; he had finally found someone who had the time for him. And I had all my time for him! I was with him for two months in his summer holidays. I spent a lot of time helping him with what he should have been learning at school and also playing tennis and swimming with him, basically teaching him how to become confident and be a normal human being.

Luckily the results started showing through very quickly and his parents thought that I was some kind of magician. In fact all I was doing was to give him the attention that his parents had so glaringly omitted to give him.

I have kept in touch with the family; Basil and I are still close friends and he is now a successful lawyer having excelled at both the schools that he went to and at Harvard.- LN