Not What I Expected: Help and Hope for Parents of Atypical Children

by Rita Eichenstein

Is my child’s problem something I caused or could have prevented—or something my child inherited from me? Will I be up to the stresses and challenges of raising an atypical child? Will we be able to afford the best treatment for our child? Am I ignoring our other child/children by focusing on our atypical child? Will the relationship with my spouse suffer because we have different ideas about how to deal with our child’s problem? Often contributing to a parent’s depression is a profound sense of isolation. You may be the only one of your friends with an atypical child and thus have no one with whom to share your worries and concerns. In my clinical practice, I frequently hear parents say: “No one understands what I’m going through.”