On the benefits of organizing your mother's files...

[hazliya]

You might find gems from your childhood that you never knew existed.

Like your psych evaluation.

I was flipping through things, moving them wherever they belonged, and my eye caught on seeing my name. So I checked it out, finding that it was from the shrink my parents brought me to, addressed to my pediatrician. It was a good read, especially for those of you who've known me since elementary school.


"It is of interest that she has manifested hyperlexia, noted first when she taught herself to read at the age of 2-1/2."

Hyperlexia. Too many words? I looked it up, and it's exactly what it sounds like. You're superhuman at reading, but no so good with the social cues. Hence, one red flag for autism. I always just thought that I liked to read. Turns out I was worse than I thought. I looked at some of the books I had read, and thought "Wow. I read that when I was three?" And now I realize that I really was pretty weird.

"To this day, she remains a strong reader and finds tremendous enjoyment in both reading and writing stories and poetry."

I don't remember the poetry, but I remember writing oodles of stories.
Maybe I'm having success as a playwright today because of some karmic circle due to being abnormal as a child? xD

"She has never manifested any significant behavior problems over the years, but occasional periods of silliness and regression have been reported."

...
I was a CHILD. We're SUPPOSED to act silly. It's what kids do.

"It takes her a long time to complete her homework because she is very restless and distractable."

"For the most part, however, she generally wants to please and be helpful, but her lack of followthrough is frustrating."

"Apparently, when she is excited, she will bounce up and down, rock side to side, or make little noises."

...Some things have not changed in the last 10+ years.

"She was clearly very verbally bright. On occasion, she also had a tendency to ramble but was not particularly pedantic."

...
I rambled at my shrink when I was little. Apparently, I was unaware that I was being evaluated. Or if I did, I didn't care. =/

"Mother noted that sometimes when she interacts with other children, she tends to play the teacher's role."

I couldn't help it. Bugs were awesome, and everyone needed to know that. I was a tiny backyard Steve Irwin.

"Despite the fact that she is very bright and linguistically talented, it is possible that in the future she may become a somewhat unsatisfactory student, as she may have trouble setting aside her own interests and thoughts enough to adequately focus on what is expected of her in class."

My thoughts on school when I was little was that if I didn't think I'd ever need to know something, I didn't want to do it. If I was going to write stories about animals all my life, why would I need math? Or science? I liked Spanish, though, so I could talk to iguanas and alpacas.


Then he went on to predict a lot of problems down the line, and the best way to keep me on track.

So my overall impression is "Wow, I didn't realize that I was that weird." And I was a little proud of it, in a way.

And then another part of me was a little disappointed in the psychiatric field for giving diagnostic names to typical behaviors, making them disorders. In my mind, children are supposed to want to play all the time. They're supposed to be excitable and hyper and have the attention span of goldfish.

Don't get me wrong, I think that severe cases might indicate something is wrong. Like in my case, I agree that hyperlexia was cause for concern, since it was possibly affecting my social development.

But I also feel that people tend to use diagnoses as a crutch. Like parents with kids who misbehave in public and don't discipline them - it's not bad parenting, no, he can't help it because he has a disorder. Sometimes I watch these kids and think "That's because he's four. Of course he's going to want to grab shiny things." You can't diagnose predevelopmental kleptomania after he grabs something off a shelf, it's "I want that because it sparkles."
If your kid is shy around strangers, that doesn't mean he has autism.
If your child doesn't want to play softball like you did, that doesn't mean he's dissociative from parental figures and needs to be put on drugs to 'correct' him.
The list goes on and on.
And don't even get me started on psychologists who diagnose everything under the sun on a normal kid to acquiesce to parents. Or the pharmaceutical industry.

Seriously. Everything's a disorder nowadays, and that undermines the people who actually need help. Like a mass, societal 'cry wolf.'
And the sense of personal responsibility. If you or your kid has a disorder, there's nothing you can do, right? And everyone accommodates you? It's an excuse.

*sigh* Sometimes a science progresses in one direction too far for its own good.

-Haz

Comments

[jalawingedone.livejournal.com]

I loved play-do as a kid. Then I volunteered with 3-5-year-olds for a spell and although I still love kids, I hate play-do. When I was a kid, I learned that when the colors smush together, they don't stay swirly rainbows for long, but become a yucky brown. I became the sort of kid who never, ever mixed the colors. The first thing cubbies want to do with play-do? Mix the colors together. I'm not obsessive-compulsive, but I do have the occasional compulsion, and it's surprising how much it grates to have those idiosyncrasies forcibly broken. *shoos imaginary kids away from the pristine play-do* Go play with blocks! Blocks are wonderful; they build creativity. My play-do.

[ultimatepsi.livejournal.com]

I'm grateful that my parents never got me evaluated for ADHD. I think I know how that would have turned out.

[kgola.livejournal.com]

I learned two things about psychology from my dad. The first is that most so-called disorders kids are diagnosed with can't be accurately diagnosed until third grade - before then, there's a big chance they'll grow out of it. If it persists then, then it could be a problem.

The other thing is the level of function or the level of problems associated to the so-called disorder is also important in making a diagnosis. If a kid is so distractable, they can't pay attention in class, that might be a problem. If a kid is only distractable when playing outside in the yard with shiny objects, but at school can focus, it's probably not a big deal.

The problem I've found is that many psychologists, especially today, forget both of these points.

[curelightchild.livejournal.com]

*Applauds* I've been saying the same thing forever. I'm sooo glad someone else thinks the same way. I especially hate what they do with ADD. Is it just me or is EVERYONE our age ADD nowadays?