Margaret Mikol is a mom after my own heart. Even though we’ve never met, I feel like I know a great deal about her. Margaret is the mom of a special needs child. In 1978, her daughter, Julia, was born with a severe combined immunodeficiency, a condition that required a completely sterile environment. Like the “boy in the bubble”, Julia lived at the hospital (and so did Margaret) for years. Like the parents of Katie Beckett, the Mikols quickly exceeded their insurance coverage and had to rely on Medicaid to cover the $350,000 annual price tag. Like Katie Beckett,... more

No sooner did the decision come down about the state of Georgia awarding its largest settlement ever for a death in one of its mental hospitals, but the reporters for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are finding even more disgraceful care of Georgia’s mentally ill population. This time it’s in our state’s prison system.

Apparently Georgia’s system is being audited... more

Money can’t bring back 14-year-old Sarah Crider. But I’m guessing her family is breathing a sigh of relief that all the legal wrangling is over. Sarah is the girl who died a year ago in one of Georgia’s mental hospitals of an intestinal blockage…a condition that persisted until her death due to the neglectful actions of the staff at the facility. Last week state officials agreed to settle the wrongful death case with the family for a record-setting $1.25... more

What if the older child your family is considering adopting, smokes? Will you allow the child to continue smoking after being placed in your home? Will you insist the child quit smoking or refuse to pursue the adoption?

We had a 15-year-old girl come to live with us and she stayed for nearly two years, even though originally, it was supposed to be for only a few days. We found out the day after she arrived that she was a smoker. Not only are none of our family members smokers, but we have children with asthma, so we’ve never allowed anyone... more

If something smells good, it probably tastes good too, right? It seems like a logical assumption, especially for a young child or even an older special needs child. That may be why several young children have licked the hand sanitizer off from their hands, after an adult placed it there, instead of just rubbing it in, to disinfect their hands. Only, the adults didn’t realize the children had eaten the hand sanitizer, until they figured it out, after the children became extremely ill.

The children were found to be severely lethargic,... more

I had to re-read this because I couldn’t believe my eyes – an Emory University student’s mother calling a Wall Street firm to reconsider her child’s rejected internship? And this was after the student had missed a sitdown session and canceled a phone interview.

Today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution enumerates the hyper-hovering of baby boomer parents over their offspring. It cites examples of parents attending job... more

Last night I sat in a room full of hopeful, yet battle-weary parents. I felt completely at home. A couple hundred parents of special needs children had gathered to hear the Georgia Department of Education’s information on how they plan to implement the recently passed Senate Bill 10, Vouchers for Special Needs Students. The line to ask questions of the “Associate Superintendent of Innovative Education” was a mile long. (Side note here: This gal has... more

I know something else that could help to explain how Cho Seung-Hu developed into the totally detached cold-blooded killer he was last Monday. Nancy, over on Reactive Attachment Disorder blog is addressing it as well. And on the listserves of those parenting traumatized children, parents are speculating the way the parents of autistic children are speculating…could it be that Cho had attachment disorder?

Hmmm…the evidence isn’t there, yet. So the theory is just that, a theory. But the one big difference between attachment disorder or borderline personality disorder and other... more

Some news sources are reporting that the Virginia Tech killer, Cho Seung-Hu, was diagnosed with autism. The source of this information appears to be a great-aunt who lives in Korea and hasn’t seen Cho for several years. The thought of all this makes my head spin.

First off, autism doesn’t account for the sociopathic, paranoid behaviors. One thing we as parents of special kids need to make crystal clear…children with autism are NOT killers just by virtue of being autistic. Children with autism have major communication and social impairments as a result... more

In my current cynical state, few things can bring me to tears. While I’m watching with amazement and horror at the Virginia Tech tragedy, I have to admit those reports in this morning’s paper did not bring a tear to my eyes the way this one did: Friends Make Teen Feel Like Royalty. Out of South Georgia, a place I had long thought of as stereotypically backward when it came to special needs students (Sorry Cindy on Older... more