About our Daughter

I am mother to four wonderful daughters, ages 17, 19, 21, and 23, and wife to the greatest husband on earth. God has given us a special child to raise one who was diagnosed with early-onset bipolar disorder at the age of seven, though she showed signs of it from the age of fifteen months. She also has ADHD, Sensory Integration Disorder (sensory seeking), Dyslexia, and Non-Verbal Learning Disorder-NOS, all typical comorbidities for a bipolar child. In spite of the trials, she enjoys lacrosse, running (finished her first marathon in October of 2014!), and reading and writing her own books. I will share with you the many joys and sorrows we have faced and will face in the future with the hope that you may find better understanding about this mental illness caused by both chemical and structural abnormalities in the brain. I desire that you will be encouraged by this blog if you are also dealing with a bipolar child. Thank you for reading and sharing in our journey.

How Did You Know She Was Bipolar So Young?

I wrote a long explanation of how we came to this bipolar diagnosis in a child so young under my post of March 19th of 2009. If your child or a child you know bears similarities, please seek out a good psychiatrist and don't wait for "things to get better." Often they will simply get worse, and the longer a child is unmedicated, the more damage their brain can accrue. Early diagnoses and treatment are key to providing these children with a chance at a successful life later as a teen and an adult.
Never change, start or stop a medication without the approval of your child's physician!

Monday, August 30, 2010

One Down, One to Go

Our youngest daughter started school today, half-days all week. I breathed a sigh of relief. She tends to be the squeaky wheel. Now one more week until my oldest starts public school, and then I can focus on homeschooling Caroline and Jane together. Caroline will have all day classes on Tuesdays at a homeschool co-op and Jane will have them on Thursdays, so they will get a break from each other too. Caroline is VERY happy about being homeschooled and wrote me a thank you note. I posted it up on the bulletin board so I can refer to it later when she is hating it. Hopefully she won't, but you never know. I am using the Alpha Omega online homeschooling program called Monarch (it grades most of the work for you and prints out report cards too) combined with Sonlight readers and math. I think they will be quite busy between homework for their coop classes and all of the work I will be assigning to them. I pray for a good year!
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