News Article

Dear Director,

Our 12-year-old adopted son has been acting out of it and spacey. This is the time of year when he was removed from his birth family. Out of the blue, at school yesterday, he ran out of the classroom and didn’t respond to his name.  He ended up in the school parking lot talking nonsense. By the time I arrived at school, he was pretty much back to normal but didn’t recall what had happened. We had a scheduled appointment with his Psychiatrist the very next day. She was quite dismissive of this episode and the changes we had been noticing in our son. How can I get my son’s Psychiatrist to listen to me? I heard this may be a trauma response, something called dissociation.  I know my son best and the doctor should take my observations along with the school incident more seriously.

Signed, Frustrated

Learn all about Childhood Lead Poisoning from JFS’s own Joe Studivant. Joe became an expert on this subject when his daughter contracted lead poisoning as a toddler. Read on to learn the valuable lessons Joe reveals.

We adopted a sibling group of 3 from foster care and they each came with an IEP. I heard that you only have an IEP if you have a disability. My kids don’t look disabled. I mean, I know about their trauma background and all, but they can read and they can see and all that. But now I am worried and it’s all so daunting.