Facts on Children's Mental Health in America

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My husband (who has been diagnosed with bipolar and anxiety) spent over a year in three different state-run facilities in Louisiana. He was about 14 and had entered the system after a year of truancy. His mom (whose husband with bipolar disorder had committed suicide) felt that she couldn't handle the situation on her own since she had to work full-time and care for another son.

My husband did not like the facilities and tried to run away. He said that at one point, he was physically abused in punishment for discipline problems. He felt that they often used seclusion and heavy meds to address unwanted behaviors. He felt that what he learned from the experience is that he did not ever want to go back. My husband is 44, and hopefully a few things have changed in the last 30 years.

He says that it was not all bad, though. He was quite the stud and had several girlfriends.

DW_a_mom wrote:

I really believe that parenting is the first (and often only) "treatment" for a lot of difficulties. It's up to parents to make the decisions about their kids responsibly and carefully, to get all the information they can. But without attentive and supportive parenting I don't think anything else (medication, therapy, IEP, environmental changes such as quiet rooms) is as effective. That is not to say that I don't believe that those other things are necessary, but I think they have to be looked at as an add-on. For instance, I know the value of anti-depressants but feel that without psychotherapy only half of the potential will be met. "Getting treated" will never be a one-time, quick fix.

I look at the picture I get of ASD from all the reading I do, and then look at my own daughter. I consider the struggles she has, most of which can be attributed to ASD, and find ways of dealing with them. But I also look at her strengths, the problems she *doesn't* have, which are her particular qualities--her generosity, her empathy, her self-awareness, her interest in art and literature, her interactions with her siblings--and I give our family full credit for that. For the first 11 years of her life, before she was dx, we raised her with the same empathetic parenting approaches we used with all of our other children, basically tuning ourselves in to her needs. We've seen the benefits this has had for our older kids (some of them are adults now), and I am seeing the benefits it has for her every day.

J.

Good parenting is important for every child. However, it is not enough for many of the problems that kids on the spectrum face--speech issues, reading comprehension issues, mental health issues, general cognitive delay, fine motor skills issues, etc.

Many kids of high IQ without speech delay, in fact, get better on their own and learn to adapt without any therapy whatsoever.

I admit that I have special concern for children who have complex issues and moderate to severe impairments.

My son is very high functioning sometimes I feel it would be easier if his problems were more recognisable.

I'm with Annamaria, though I don't disagree that good parenting helps...it just took us a lot longer than it should have to be good parents, and that's where we could have used intervention first.

For instance, DS is in a pull-out Math class. Thursday, he told me he'd been kept in at recess to do math. I asked why (at the same time being surprised that they would keep any child in at recess without informing parents, much less one with a disability) and he said something about there being a substitute teacher and him missing work and that he'd given his teacher some wrong information. He was afraid to go to school Friday because he thought it would happen again.

I sent the following letter to the teacher (I opened with concerns about him failing a math test because he didn't understand the language, and closed with a request for a meeting.)

While it isn't apparent in regular conversation, DS really struggles with language and understanding. He often has difficulty with implied information and needs some things spelled out for him that other children might understand intuitively.

For instance, DS told me today that he was kept in from recess to do math, but he has no idea why. He has some understanding that it has to do with there being a substitute teacher, and possibly confusion between him and his other teacher, but he isn't clear on what happened and what he can do to prevent missing recess in the future. I'd like to make sure that Scott clearly understands what he is supposed to do. I know that often, when I speak to Scott, I have to ask him to repeat back what I said: it can take him two or three tries to process verbal information, especially if he is distracted or upset.

In response, I got a somewhat terse reply that "a lot of kids struggled with the language on the math test." and that she'd "the teachers both spoke w/DS prior to keeping him in for recess that day and clearly explained the reason for keeping in, so he was well aware as to why he was being kept in on."

No mention of the possibility that he'd had the issue explained to him, but might not have understood it at all, no mention of why we weren't informed, and no inkling that there might be more going on here than just a whiny kid and parent. What frustrates me most is that this is just how I was treated in school - but nobody had any idea about Asperger's then, so they just dumped all the responsibility for anything that went wrong on me. Now they're doing the same to my kid, who has stacks of paperwork saying he's disabled even if he doesn't look disabled. They SHOULD KNOW BETTER.

I'm pretty ticked.

Last edited by momsparky on 07 Nov 2011, 5:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My son had a similar experience today, the students were misbehaving I always tell him to try and not participate but he gets excited and finds it hard. He said he was banging on the table he does this because of sensory issues.

He was asked to open his book which he did but continue to bang on the table. He was single out and two other children. He doesn't understand why because he didn't start and he said that I told him it was ok to bang on the table. I did tell him it was ok so of course he thinks its ok in any situation.

His year head has told him he has detention at lunch time for the week, he doesn't understand why he is been punished. She also got angry with him, he has been on mid term and just back first day we had a pretty bad weekend as him not wanting to attend school today. We got passed it and he went to school ok this morning and now this has happened. I feel this teacher who is his year head and attends all the meetings has been treating him badly for sometime as I suspect the same attitude there is nothing wrong.

Now he is refusing to go to school tomorrow, I compromised and said he could have the morning off as he has a class with her. I don't know if I am doing the right thing as I don't want him to think this is the right way avoidance.

You've got to stick up for your child and use your best judgment as a parent, I think.

I had a horrible experience when my son with high funtioning classic autism was in kindergarten. Administrators and teachers minimizing my concerns and treating me like a neurotic parent when I was working my tail off in order to keep my son up with the back of the pack.

My older son has always been pretty well-behaved at school and looks "normal,"

Maybe you should talk to the principal, vice principal, your son's special ed case manager, or the school district central office. I had to complain to the central office just to get everyone to listen to me and to treat me better. It also resulted in my son getting a lot of additional testing--proving (unfortunately) that I was right about him having autism and learning issues.

Good luck! I dread the day when I have to deal with a teacher who is not nice to my son.