Flutterby™! : Elephant in the Playroom

Charlene suggested that I read the Elephant in the Playroom, a collection of essays by parents about raising their special needs kids, compiled by Denise Brodey. I read it yesterday evening.

As I read through the first few essays in the book, my reaction was somewhat skeptical, it seemed that the parents were discussing kids who just needed a little more discipline and structure, but as the cases got more and more severe, and I compared some of the stories of irratonal behavior and kids expressing the desire to do right but not being able to follow through on it, something clicked, and I gained quite a bit of sympathy.

Along the way, through tales of profound hearing loss, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, cerebral palsey, various levels of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and a whole bunch of different places on the autistic spectrum, I started to make a few other connections.

I've long believed that our attitudes towards jail, prison and punishment are severely misguided, and at this point driven largely by prison unions and "punishment", without any thought to what's actually effective. As I imagined some of these kids (and some kids I know) growing up, I had those images of what we're doing wrong in the punishment industry reinforced.

It's also fashionable to dismiss self-diagnoses, but I already have a fairly low impression of the fields of psychiatry and psychology, and after reading the umpteenth tale of going through therapists and psychiatrists until they found one who actually made a difference I both maintain that view and respect that a parent, or indeed the subject, can come to the conclusion that there's something wrong no matter the establishment.

Which brought me to the realization that I wish there were enough science in psychiatry that I could look at some of my own behaviors without putting a big black check mark next to my medical insurance records.

At any rate, I got enough out of the quick read to recommend it. Especially to prospective parents.