Kids with a Diagnosis

All the children and youth mentioned my recent posts have a diagnosis. Many were undiagnosed until they went to school and the teachers saw something wrong and asked a School Psychologist or another person to do a thorough interview and testing and the professional came up with what we call "A Differential Diagnosis".

May I add, such a diagnosis is not easy to do. It takes a well trained person who knows how to interview and knows all the possible categories into which a child might fall. This diagnosis is not fool proof or infallible. Unlike some diseases, many of the childhood areas of issues are not diagnosed with an X Ray, Blood Test or Biopsy. That means that there can be disagreements about the accuracy of what ails a child.

But skilled therapists can usually get pretty close and hopefully come up with a course of counseling and treatment that will assist the child and his parents. That means that the interviewer actually interviews the parents of the child and gets their input. As we found in our research, parents are rarely consulted by Doctors, Psychologists, Occupational Therapists, or Ministers. That is a shame and a real problem that Sweeten Life Systems will soon tackle in a very big way. (We are launching a new brand called, The Village Initiative with Parents or VIP to focus on Parents and other people who love children with a medical diagnosis.

Just consider this: If there are over 570,000 children and youth from birth to age 18 in our state, there must be two parents for each child, four grandparents and several siblings. Although the 570,000 kids represents a huge number of people to treat directly, double that number for parents, double it for the siblings and quadruple it for the grandparents. Wow, that is a lot of folks who are personally affected by the children in their family who have a serious medical problem.

Just count all the persons affected because there are so many children in Ohio who have to deal with a serious disability. Look at the following numbers:

Children + 570,000 + Two Parents 1,001,400.00 + Four Grand Parents 2,280,000 + Two siblings 2,280.000

This is a grand total of 6,270,000.00 people affected by all the children diagnosed with a medical issue in Ohio. That is roughly 50% of all the people who live here.

Does anyone care how the parents, grand parents and grandparents and siblings feel? Does anyone ever ask them or support them or care for them? Has anyone ever developed any Special Life Skills to improve their lives?

Would it make a difference is churches and community groups actually asked the extended family members what they needed?

We can tell you because we asked them who was helping them.