Some of you who were kind enough to read and comment on my blog about my daughter, will know that she was born with a problem… autism actually.
Her younger sister was also born with problems, she was diagnosed as having a mild form of autism but also with pathological avoidance demand syndrome... yeah a mouthful I know!
For years we fought for help for our two adopted girls, coming against brick walls at every turn.
The National health service in the Uk make mental problems the least of their priorities, mainly because mental help, psychiatrists etc is very expensive so they avoid allowing your kids to be diagnosed as much as possible, because with diagnosis comes help, treatment and counselling... again very costly.
Instead they offer family therapy, which very often is of no use at all, or they will, like in our case, investigate the family to see if they can find anything that they can pin down to bad parenting, again reducing the cost.
My eldest was finally diagnosed when she was 12, too late for any form of real help as her brain had ‘established’, so any help after that was very minimal and not very effective at all.
Recently, a friend of the family’s little boy had been acting up at school.
I wasn’t surprised as I had met the little boy many times before and recognised his behaviour in my eldest daughter who has autism. I didn’t say anything at the time to the parents for tactful reasons and also not being any of my business.
Then one day she calls me. She remembered I had told her about my daughters and asked me for my opinion on her little boy.
She also asked me ‘what worked’ because discipline in the normal sense wasn’t working.
I told her that discipline with my girls didn’t work, mainly because they don’t realise what they have done is wrong.
“Now you mention it,” she said.. “When I ask him why he has to stand in the corner, he doesn’t know!”
She told me that the school has recommended her son to see a psychiatrist, but the insurance company are dragging their heels in agreeing to pay for it.
Oh boy was this a memory jerker… the cost of psychiatry raises its ugly head once again.
I gave her some tips as I had learned how to teach my own girls better behaviour at school, the instances won’t ever be zero, but they will lessen if using this method.
A few days after that, she calls back.. her son’s behaviour at school had dramatically improved!!
She is still waiting on the insurance company to agree to pay for a diagnosis and it makes me wonder how much more difficult it will be if and when a public health service comes in to the States… it will be just like the Uk I expect.. they will try their best to avoid diagnosing kids so they don’t have to pay the very expensive psychiatrists bills.
I mean.. if the insurance company is reluctant.. the public health will be even more so!!
I feel for every parent who has a mentally challenged child, I could hear in my friend’s voice the fear and frustration I had when my girls were small… it was like history repeating itself and my heart went out to her.
Dreading the phone ringing from the school to say he’s done something else… the looks and the stares… and the lack of help.
She said she has me as a sounding board, and I told her she can call me for a rant any time she likes… I’ve been there.
Except when I was in that position I didn’t have anyone around me who’d been through all of that.
But I am glad that my experience even though was tough, can now be of help to someone else.
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