Homeopathic child rearing

Miss Smith gazed at the parents in front of her. Mr. and Mrs. Grahamly had a daughter, Liver, who was in Form 2G, and were sitting on chairs nearly four feet apart. They would occasionally look at each other and share a smile that hinted at a very special bond. And then they'd shuffle their chairs slightly further apart. Miss Smith felt like she was umpiring at a tennis match.
"Your daughter," she began again, looking at the desk to avoid having to keep turning her head to look at the other parent.
"Liver," said Mr. Grahamly.
"Yes. Yes." said Miss Smith. "Right, fine, let's start with that. Why did you call the poor girl Liver? She's getting a fair amount of bullying and torment on account of it, and there are limits to what we can do to protect her from it. I've tried keeping her in the classroom during playtimes and breaks, but she get upset. If I let her out with the other kids, they tease her and she gets upset."
"Liver's a nice name!" said Mr. Grahamly. "And it's a very useful organ. I would be proud to be called Liver."
"And what's your name, Mr. Grahamly?" said Miss Smith, realising that Mrs. Grahamly wasn't going to say anything.
"Appendix." He hung his head a little, and his wife shuffled her chair away from his again.
"Yes. No. Oh for fu--" Miss Smith mumbled inaudibly under her breath, and regained her composure.
"Liver tells me that she doesn't spend a lot of time with either of you. She said, in her last essay," and here Miss Smith brandished a piece of paper with childish scrawl on it running across the lines, "that she spends two days a week in the airing cupboard cuddling up to the hot-water heater."
Mr. and Mrs. Grahamly exchanged glances, and Miss Smith was pleased to see that they looked worried. Then they shuffled further apart.
"WHAT is going on?" she demanded, her voice much louder than she'd intended. "Why is she in the airing cupboard? Why are you edging further and further away from each other? What is the problem here, really?"
"Well you see," said Mrs. Grahamly in a gentle, polite voice, "we believe you see in homeopathicism you see."
"No, I don't see." Miss Smith was beginning to hate the couple. "Explain to me, in simple words. Without forever asking me if I see."
"You see," said Mrs. Grahamly ignoring Miss Smith's snarl, "you have to keep diluting the concentration of things to gain maximum effects. That's homeopathy, you see. So you see, when we feel affection for each other you see we dilute it a little to make it stronger you see. We've never been more in love, have we?"
"It's true," said Mr. Grahamly, as the couple shuffled still further apart. They were now both well beyond their respective ends of the desk Miss Smith still sat behind. "And we apply the same methods to our children, we homeopathise our love for them. Though it sounds like Liver needs to start doing that with the airing cupboard now."
"You dilute your love for your children?" Miss Smith was now staring at them with the same look she normally reserved for Miss Devenport who taught Religious Instruction. "You're utterly, contemptuously, crackers. I'm calling Child Support Services."
Mr. Graham stood up and approached her desk, and she felt a sudden frisson of worry. He was a tall man with broad, muscular looking shoulders. At her desk, he reached into his pocket, and Miss Smith flinched. Out came a thin white rectangle of card.
"My card," he said gravely, and went and sat down again.
Miss Smith looked at it. It announced Mr. Graham as the Head of Social Services and Child Care.
"Right," she said with a sigh. "Homeopathically speaking then, I think we're done here, probably for the next couple of years."