I have just spent a week staying with good friends of ours and was horrified at how the dad constantly criticises his 13 year old son. We've seen this before but it seems to have gotten a lot worse. Their son is a slightly odd child (very bright but zero social skills and does lots of things that aren't very sensible). But the dad criticises him non stop. From the minute the kid gets up till when he goes to bed. The poor boy looks like a dog that has been repeatedly kicked and is just waiting for the next round of criticism.
In contrast, their younger son can do no wrong (even though he is exceptionally manipulative e.g. Pretending his brother is hurting him just to see him get yelled at).
You can see how toxic it is - the older boy hates his brother and it's starting to become a self fulfilling prophecy - the dad says he's useless and a bully and so he is starting to become that. He does do mean things to his younger brother but I'm not surprised! Mostly he just seems so sad. I did not see him smile once during the week I was there. I tried to engage him in conversation but got mono syllabic answers. He genuinely comes across as one of those kids who'll end up taking his own life or getting into serious drugs - that's how unhappy he seemed.
I had a very gentle chat to the wife who doesn't do what the dad does but doesn't stop him doing it. Our sons are close in age and so we talked about puberty and the challenges of teens etc and I suggested some of the things that work for us - like trying to find the positive and praising that instead of focusing on the negative.
She said that she'd mention that to her husband as she felt he criticised their son a lot. But beyond that I don't see what I could do. I don't want to be an intefering busybody and could seriously jeopardise our friendship if I raised it, but I feel awful watching that poor boy having his self esteem ripped apart.
Some of their other friends who see them more often were also talking about it and how bad it was, yet no-one seemed willing to say something to the dad. Is it better to butt out or to say something to help the child?