It certainly cant be that every aberrant act by a kid means they are bring their ak47 to school. But, we KNOW the signals, and we KNOW the ways to better safeguard, and still…

freespirit, that’s a very intense novel to read. I can see why you left it time and again. (for others, its about a 17 year old boy who kills several schoolmates with a crossbow, and his mother’s introspectiion about how it might have all come to be. ) When I work
in the ‘weeping world’ I have to balance in other ways. I think readers do too, freespirit.
dr.e

‘We need to talk about Kevin’ by Lionel Shriver.

I found this book very difficult, I left it and came back, left it and came back, I finished it after I read this post.

I couldn’t help recalling this post and thread when I read this story:

Houston suspended over Pat Robertson ‘finger’ photo

It’s certainly more than possible that the student is being erroneously accused of mental health issues as an attempt to discredit him. But what if the concerns are real? The student is now a media darling — the victim of the university.

And now, what about the next time… the next student…?

I am the adoptive mother of children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and bipolar disorder with psychotic features. Teachers are not well informed on these disorders nor are the school administrators. They want to quarantine the students in a special class for people who might get out of control at school, and hope they drop out soon. And many do.

My experience with social workers is equally grim. They may have read about “one” but could they recognize “one.” The parents must be doing something wrong. Maybe they are, but that does not preclude a serious mental illness. Psychologists are sometimes better. Psychiatrists also get a mixed review. Child Psychologists are sometimes reluctant to diagnose them and don’t listen very well to parents. What would we know?

My favorite story about a CP is the one who did not believe my daughter’s long standing diagnosis of bipolar disorder and insisted on giving her an anti-depressant, over my objections. After she came down from three weeks of mania. I threatened to get his home address and leave her at his house if he ever did that again. I was not joking. When he took her brother off all of his meds because he was non-compliant, a very common issue in adolescents, I insisted we be able to change psychiatrists. It took a long time to get my son back into a situation where he would go on meds again.

Many parents use pediatricians or family doctors to administer or monitor meds due to a lack of Child Psychiatrists. Having had to do that a few years ago, I can tell you it is scary.

In my case, since the kids are adopted, I have no shame about their illness/conditions. If, however, the parents also have these conditions or have relatives who have them, and as far as I know most have a genetic component, the parents may not be effectively treated themselves and may be deeply ashamed. It is common for people with brain disorders to marry others who have brain disorders. So Dad may have schizophrenia and Mom bipolar disorder. This makes for an especially difficult home situation. “Professionals” may find it hard to make headway within the family and school personnel just “run the other way.”

The current SCHIP bill, the one Bush vetoed, insists that insurance companies treat brain disorders/mental illness the same as they do other physical conditions. This is a big step in the direction of effective treatment. My children’s meds cost hundreds or thousands of dollars per month depending on the current RX. The had Medicaid as a secondary insurance, or they would not have their meds. I could not afford them.

The next step would be a major campaign to “normalize” mental illness through the media, television shows, education. When people can say “my son has bi-polar disorder” in the same way they can say my child has diabetes or some other chronic disorder, then the whole system will cope much better.

I agree that psychological professionals need to be better informed and speak out. Hopefully they will start with supporting the overturning of the veto of SCHIP and move on to Hollywood and popular TV and magazines. Take a hint from the gay right movement’s recent success. Demystify and inform.

Just as an aside, although my children had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder prior to placement, I was not told my children had these disorders when they were placed with me. The agency just said they were hyper and here are their meds.

The agency fought the FASD diagnosis, because it meant a greater medical and counseling exposure for them. They provided no guidance, no support. What I have learned I have done on my own or with the support of other parents and a few really great professionals. I am not sure that many biological parents are in any better position.

Open the mental health closet and let it hang out, or get ready for more funerals.

PS Dr. Estes these “professionals” are, sad to say, all in Colorado.

In the case of school shootings (My god, what kind of a country or world leads to this!), there are all sorts of efforts and guidelines to identify troubled youths who might pose a danger, but still some fall through the cracks.
Pat of the failure lies in the tension between intervention and privacy rights. A lot of it has to do with fragmentation in the system. Teachers can only address what they observe in school, and the police only know what’s in criminal records. Neighbors may be unsure when to mind their business or which agency to contact if they do want to get involved.

What is needed, IMO, is co-ordination and a systems-wide plan.

In the meantime, vhe violence seems surreal. Honestly, I’m having trouble getting past the ‘I can’t believe this’ stage on one level, even as I know for d==n sure ti’s true on another.

Your line of thought re human nature and what some would see as ‘terrorist’ when in fact, it’s not even close. You’re accurate: Some adults already over-react, wrongfully coloring a child. I think there’d have to be firm guidelines to evaluate, in school and law enforcment settings, rather than just subjective opinions of the moment. It’s true that some adults don’t know the difference between poor socialization of the moment and catastrophic acting out that points to a young person’s mind coming undone.

Writing this piece, I was thinking about the adolescent onset of schizophrenia with megalomania and paranoia as its central features… which appear to be, in the cases of school shooters, a common configuration that no amount of talking to, legal intervention alone, or talk therapy can mediate. It’s critical to try to intervene before paranoia reaches the zenith of suicidal and homicidal ideation. These are not easy subjects nor answers. I hold hope we can do better by the person who suffers this illness, by those who might be harmed because of it

dr.e

A fifth-grader spouts off to a classmate, “I’m going to kill you” in anger during an argument, and today’s standard response is to (very often) charge that child with making terroristic threats, and the path their feet are then set upon has a much different outcome than that which I think you intend.