The past few weeks have been filled with a buzz of activity at our house. Hiram’s siding the garage and reprising his Man of Steel role in preparation for Dam to Dam in a few weeks. My time’s been divided between correcting proofs for The Caregiver’s Notebook and conducting interviews for a book about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children. Throw high school graduation season into the mix and, like I said, things are buzzing around here.
No time for sitting around and eating bon bons.
And hardly time, as has been mentioned in other blog posts this week, for writing new blog posts either. But enough time to contemplate yesterday’s guest post by Maggie Gale over at www.DifferentDream.com, my website for parents of kids with special needs.
Maggie’s post is an amazing story about her daughter Lois.
Lois had a TE/EAF repair shortly after birth, the same anomaly and repair our son had. In her post Maggie describes how Lois remembered and grieved about those early events. Ten years ago, I would have poo-pooed her story, but not anymore. Not after our son was treated for PTSD caused by his early medical experiences.
Kids remember more and further back than we think.
Traumatic memories remain especially vivid and affect our children more than we want to believe. Which is why my days are filled reading books about PTSD ink kids, with interviews of parents who have kids with PTSD, and of experts who treat kids with it.
Even though I’d rather be eating bon bons and writing funny blog posts.
So today, instead of an original and finely crafted post, I’d like to direct you to Maggie Gale’s guest post, Do Kids Experience Grief about Their Special Needs. It’s more disturbing than funny. More heart-wrenching than hilarious. And important enough to the well-being of children to make bonbon and blog posting sacrifices seem as insignificant as they really are.
Photo Credit: John Kasawa at www.freedigitalphotos.net
