What to do when the psychiatrist says “let’s rule out ADHD” and your kid just wants to be left alone General information, not clinical advice about your child. The family described here is a composite; the costs, timelines, and my own practices are real.…
Looksmaxing, self-image, and the decline that looks like discipline A young man comes home from his first year away at college and his parents cannot say what is wrong. He looks better. Leaner. His jaw reads sharper in photographs. He dresses with more intention…
Her mother interrupted me eleven minutes into the feedback session. “She had a good childhood. Her needs were met. Much more than mine were.” She was not reflecting. She was objecting. A stable home. Two parents who stayed. Tuition paid, tables full, no raised…
The text arrives at 4:47 on a Thursday, six days after you get home from the desert. Morning my man! Hope you and the family have been well, sir. We’ve got a client to refer for a neuropsych. 46-year-old male, name you’d know, high-functioning,…
How insurance quietly decides who can treat you, how often, and for how long A card in your wallet is not the same as care. Coverage tells you a plan exists. It does not tell you who is allowed to treat you, how often,…
A second opinion on a twelve-year-old’s ODD label, and the difference between trying to defeat a limit and trying to find one. The referral packet used the word random four times. Randomly groans during instruction. Randomly hits classmates. Random outbursts in PE. Random refusals.…
A nine-year-old chess champion, a borderline autism question, and the difference between incapacity and inexperience. Victor was nine, a rated tournament player, and better at chess than most adults who sat across from him. He set up the board during our second session the…
A fifteen-year-old who was easy to like and easy to misread, a hedge the data had not earned, and what it took to correct the record. I want to show you the worst paragraph I wrote last year. Results should be interpreted with caution…
A gifted ten-year-old, two borderline attention tests, and what an examiner owes a family when the data will not decide. His parents had timed it. Thirty-five minutes. That was how long Michael could sit with homework before something in him stood up and left,…
A twelve-year-old artist, the therapist who carried her through grief, and the attention problem giftedness had helped her outrun. Savannah’s therapist keeps her drawings. Five years of them, taped to the office wall in slow rows, from the crayon houses of a seven-year-old to…
