“
PARENTING is the easiest thing in the world to have an opinion about, but the
HARDEST
thing in the world to do.”
– Matt Walsh
H
aving children is an amazing experience… parents watch them grow through a series of cognitive, physical, emotional, and behavioral stages and achieve developmental milestones along the way. The paradigm shifts for parents when they recognize “little differences” in their child that separate them from others. In response to this awareness, the course of action parents choose to take can vary from looking at the difference and questioning if it needs to be looked at more closely or looking beyond the difference and hoping it will correct itself. Even with the great strides Americans have made in recent decades in becoming aware of childhood mental health conditions, there’s still too great a number of children and adolescents who go without the help they need. This is concerning when experts tell us there are high risk factors associated with not getting needed treatment early-on. One of the reasons why finding treatment is delayed is that there is an ongoing stigma that surrounds mental and behavioral issues in children. Parents often struggle with shame, fear, and guilt - feeling as though they failed their kid in some way. All these factors affect a parent’s ability to trust where they should send their child to address the issues at hand. What follows is a real-life story, the second, in an ongoing series of four. The story tells of a family who has a 15-year-old, whose Mom described as “a creative child, who is a great thinker and very verbal.” At some point in the schooling process the student was discovered to have learning issues. The family moved around a bit and the resulting inconsistencies due to travel, made it more difficult to pinpoint any psychosocial issues that were emerging.
42 | SARATOGA FAMILY | CHRISTMAS 2020
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