FOR Christmas this year, instead of going gaga over new toys, my son Julian got new cousins as presents.

On a rare holiday visit from their homes in Hong Kong and Australia, four lively boys and two lovely young ladies - the offspring of my husband's siblings - burst into Julian's life last week.

Two of the boys - pale-skinned, rosebud-lipped N and D, aged four and three - had never met my son, the youngest grandchild in his paternal clan, before.

The last time they were here was three years ago, when my son was still in my stomach.

Unfortunately, the meeting between Julian and his overseas extended family coincided with his antisocial phase. At least, I am hoping it is a phase.

When we gathered at a restaurant for a family dinner, Julian pouted, scowled, and refused to talk to anybody.

When his eldest aunt from Sydney tried to speak to him, he held up one little hand in an effort to ward her off. When we asked him to say hello, he imperiously declared: "No!"

Come family portrait-taking time, he covered his face with a cap, his hands, even his father's shoulder.

Over dinner, he observed his "new" cousins warily. When N whipped out some Thomas the Tank Engine toys, Julian's interest was piqued, but his suspicious nature stood in the way.

Luckily, another cousin had his portable DVD player with him. When a Thomas & Friends DVD was popped in, all inhibitions were dropped. The little lads clustered in front of the tiny screen, craning their necks for a view, while piping along to the Thomas theme song at the top of their lungs. It was the sweetest ragtag choir I'd ever seen.

By the meal's end, they were bonding over boys' toys as they propped themselves up on elbows on the restaurant carpet, while the two jie jie (elder sisters) cast an indulgent watchful eye over them.

I have often wondered what Julian, as an only child, is missing out on in terms of his social development. Will he turn out weird and spoilt, as only children are often said to be?

Without the rough-and-tumble jostling and jockeying that happens among siblings, will the acute, anomalous angles in my son's personality remain, unbuffed by the impossibility of friction occurring?

Then I look at him with his cousins and think: There is hope. Cousins are highly-underrated relatives. They share the same genes but draw from different (but not dissimilar) value systems.

I imagine that the unique and positive aspects of my brothers- and sisters-in-law's child-rearing methods would cancel out my bad habits (manifested in Julian) when our children interact.

Even though Julian doesn't get to see his cousins often, there is something in the nature of kids that enables them to bond, separate, and bond again, as quickly, cleanly and sturdily as Blu Tack.

And, hopefully, the dynamics between cousins mean that they'll be closer than friends in the years ahead. With no need for surface niceties, that set of relationships are more open and free in thought and feeling. At the same time, the kind of clarity and distance that siblings, thanks to the accumulated baggage of living in close quarters, seldom enjoy can be afforded them.

My own life has become richer for the nieces and nephews I now think of as special occasion treats.

D's mother told me recently that he would say to her with mock-ferocity, "I'll chop you up into pieces!", whenever he is annoyed by something she does. It is reassuring to find out that I am not the only mother in the family whose son is a finger-wagging bossy boots.

So, as the cousins prepare to fly home, here's my broad, public hint to them: Come back soon, y'hear?

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