Encouragement for
those raising difficult
and challenged children
|
Kelsey, the special needs child in This is Not About You, is Maggy Larsen's daughter.
Kelsey is diagnosed at age 8 as mentally ill and having no resources with which to deal
with life. She has an overanxious disorder and ADHD. She has developmental delay and
a borderline IQ. She perseverates and has very little ability to control herself. Kelsey feels
out of control. She is at considerable risk for further deterioration of behavior, emotion,
and academic performance. There is no medication to improve her self concept, to
provide the resource from within her to cope with her environment. Her only strategy is
to rely on absolute denial which launches her into an impulsive acting out reaction. She
perceives the world as threatening, an environment in which things happen to her and in
which she has no control whatsoever. Her emotions are experienced potently and she
has only meager and primitive defensive systems. Kelsey was adopted as an infant. Her
birth parents were developmentally delayed and the birth mother was mentally ill with
schizophrenia. When the county adoption agent placed baby Kelsey in Maggy's arms, she
knew that Christian parenting and God's love were all that her challenging child needed in
life. Knowing it and walking it, however, proved to challenge everything Maggy thought
to be true of herself.
Does your child have a low self concept because of impulsive acting out, fear, and
confusion? Are you putting your hope in psychiatry and medicine? Are you in denial
about your child's disorders? Are you causing confusion in your child's life with your
own anxiety over your child's difficult behavior? Can you cope with overanxious
disorder, ADHD, developmental delay, impulsive acting out and the intervention of
psychiatry and medication? Is your child mentally ill? Can you cope with hospitalizations
and the diagnosis of depression or even psychosis? Are you, or other family members, at
risk for depression because of the amount of energy you devote to your challenging
child? Do you know where to turn for help? Are you ready to give it all to Jesus and let
Him work through psychiatry and medicine?
Read how Maggy Larsen's faith in Jesus allows Him to work a miracle of love and joy in
the midst of profound depression, schizophrenia, and disability in their family life.
This is Not About You
Written by - Maggy Larsen
This is Not About You has been written to give you
hope. Living with a challenging child with learning
differences, biochemical imbalances, and mental illness
can be discouraging and exhausting - especially in a
world that doesn't seem to have a place where your child
will easily fit. A challenging child tends to bring crisis
into family life. They challenge everything about us that
we hold to be true, things like, "I'm smart. I'm good. I'm
capable. I like children. My self concept is strong. I can
understand ADHD. I can live with schizophrenia. I can
care for a child with developmental delay. I'm not at risk
for depression."
