My Sister-in-Law Got Our Wild 7-Year-Old to Sleep. I Was Horrified When I Found Out How She Did It.

Care and Feeding

June 18, 2026 1:05 PM

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Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column.  Have a question for Care and Feeding?  Submit it here .

Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and have a 7-year-old son, “Orlando,” who is a high-energy handful. Two weeks ago, we were due to go out of town to meet with a client (we run our own business together). Orlando’s regular sitter had to cancel at the last minute, so my sister-in-law, “Evie,” who lives in town, and came over to watch Orlando for us.

We returned home late that night expecting to find the house wrecked and Evie exhausted. Instead, she was sitting on the couch watching TV, and Orlando was in bed asleep. When I asked her how on earth she had gotten him to go to bed before 11 p.m., she told me had given him an edible and it “really mellowed him out”! I was furious, but it’s my husband’s reaction that has me seeing red. He actually wants to start giving Orlando small doses of edibles to “even out his mood” since the one his sister gave him worked so well! His excuse it that people use medical marijuana all the time, and it would be no different. Our son is 7! Now I’m concerned he may resort to Evie’s home remedy when he wants some peace and quiet behind my back. How can I convince him this is not an appropriate treatment?

—7 and Stoned

Dear 7 and Stoned,

What your sister-in -aw did was not only lazy and morally reprehensible, but also illegal. The fact that your husband needs any kind of convincing that this isn’t child abuse is a bad sign. I’m sorry that your relationship is such that you can’t trust him to not dose your son behind your back . Parenting is hard. No doubt about it. But drugging your child is not the way to make it easier.

While your husband really shouldn’t need any convincing, I suppose we can lay out some strategies to get to him see reason. But I have my doubts that any of them will work because he and his sister sound like dum-dums.

If your husband is convinced by experts and science, show him some of the research on how cannabis can affect brain development . If there’s one thing I hope we can all agree with scientists on, it’s that humans in a state of brain development should be handled differently than fully grown ones. Orlando, at age 7, is still in a state of brain development. If your husband doesn’t agree with this, you are toast. Weed is for grown-ups with fully-developed brains. (And it can have benefits and detriments even for them!)

If your husband is convinced by analogies and simple logic, ask him if he would give prescription drugs that were not prescribed to Orlando to help him calm down. If he says yes, he is wrong and a dum-dum. If he says “No,” then ask him about giving Orlando over-the-counter drugs like NyQuil or Benadryl to calm him down. If he says “Yes,” he is wrong and, once again, a dum-dum.

If your husband is convinced by authority, he might be interested to know that if law enforcement knew that Orlando had been purposely dosed, you could lose custody of him. Can you imagine a dumber reason to lose custody of your precious child? OK. This is really up there.

If your husband remains unconvinced, reconsider him as a parent of Orlando. Hopefully all of your arguments land. If so, have him explain to Evie that what she did was unacceptable. Evie probably wouldn’t be OK with you giving her dog an edible. I don’t know why she would give one to a 7-year-old. Don’t let her near your kid.

Talk to your pediatrician, not your dealer, about how to deal with Orlando’s high energy-level.

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Dear Care and Feeding ,

My wife “Nikki” and I have a daughter, “Amber,” 9, and a son, “Adam,” 4. We relocated to our current city in March for my work. Amber is rather shy and has trouble making friends as a result, so we were very pleased when she hit it off with a classmate, “Serenity.” The issue I’m dealing with is that my wife has a hair up her ass about the fact that Serenity’s parents just had a pool installed and didn’t tell us. Nikki thinks that their failure to inform us of “the hazard” is a major violation of trust and doesn’t want Amber to be friends with Serenity anymore. Amber is in zero danger of drowning. She’s not a toddler and was on the swim team for our community pool back in our old city. My wife is insane for wanting to cost our daughter a good friend over nothing, right?

—Pool Problem

Dear Pool Problem,

You and Nikki are both overreacting here. Nikki’s idea to sever her daughter’s friendship over an omission about a pool is an overreaction. Calling your spouse and the mother of your children “insane” is also an overreaction.

Both of…