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Have You Been Reported Yet for Child Abuse?
I got an email this week from a frantic friend. She had gotten a phone call from an investigator for the county Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) informing her that she and her husband are under investigation and they needed to meet with him. She is the mother of two children; one diagnosed…
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When Doctors Won’t Diagnose
I regularly receive emails from parents of children experiencing emotional problems who are distraught because the psychologist or psychiatrist they are seeing won’t officially diagnose their child. When your child clearly isn’t well, you want to know what the condition is that’s making them unwell. That’s natural. And this is a phenomenon that is almost…
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Parent Support Groups: Those Who Live It, Understand
Photo Courtesy of www.digitalapoptosis.com Chances are, if you’re reading this, you are already looking for peers, and that’s a good thing. There is one immutable truth I’ve learned going through this roller coaster the past 15 some-odd years: no matter how great your psychiatrist, psychologist, therapists, social worker, case manager and school administrators are, they…
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Speech Therapy Is About More Than Just Speech
This post is part of Best of the Best Edition 9: Special Needs Therapy. If you click this link starting August 15th, you’ll find similar articles by other authors. Tim’s first diagnosis, at age four, was Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified. That’s a long, fancy way of saying, “we have no idea what’s going…
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Alone With The Diagnosis: Post for S-O-S Research
I can’t think of anything more shocking to a parent than hearing a doctor tell you that your child has a serious and chronic mental illness. I got my first taste of what a shock it is when my middle child, Timothy, was just eight years old. I was ill prepared for what exactly the…