Parenting: Diagnosis of a Disorder in Your Child, Parents Need Help Too

Has your child recently been diagnosed with a disorder?  Maybe you suspected something wasn’t quite right or the diagnosis came out of the blue.  Whichever category you find yourself in, it can be overwhelming.  You had all these plans or ideals for your child and suddenly those ideals or plans have been crushed or so you think.  There is hope at the end of the rainbow if you get intervention early. Intervention is not only needed for your child but for you, your spouse, and other children, as well.  When a child has been diagnosed with a disorder or medical illness, there is a period of grieving.  The grief centers around the loss of plans or ideals you had for your child.  There are five stages of grief and loss that you may encounter (Axlerod, J. 2012).