Your Child’s Disorder May Be Yours, Too

[Guest guest]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/fashion/09diagnosis.html?

em & ex=1197435600 & en=32c32cb4f1fe7a6a & ei=5087%0A

Your Child's Disorder May Be Yours, Too

By BENEDICT CAREY

Published: December 9, 2007

BY age 2 it was clear that the boy had a sensibility all his own,

affectionate and distant at the same time, often more focused on

patterns and objects than the people around him.

He was neither naturally social like his mother, nor an early and

gifted reader like his father. Quirky, curious, exuberant, he would

leap up and dance across the floor after solving a problem or winning

a game, duck walking like an N.F.L. receiver posing for a highlight

film.

Yet after Phil and Schwarz received a diagnosis for their son,

, of high functioning autism, they began to think carefully

about their own behaviors and histories.

Mr. Schwarz, a software developer in Framingham, Mass., found in his

son's diagnosis a new language to understand his own life. His

sensitivities when growing up to loud noises and bright light, his

own diffidence through school, his parents' and grandparents' special

intellectual skills — all echoed through his and 's behavior,

like some ancient rhythm.

His son's diagnosis, Mr. Schwarz said, " provided a frame in which a

whole bunch of seemingly unrelated aspects of my own life growing up

fit together for the first time. "

Researchers have long known that many psychiatric disorders and

developmental problems run in families. Children born to parents with

bipolar disorder, in which moods cycle between euphoria and

depression, run about eight times the normal risk for developing a

mood problem. Those born to parents with depression run three times

the usual risk. Attention and developmental disorders like autism

also have a genetic component.

AS more youngsters than ever receive diagnoses of disorders — the

number has tripled since the early 1990s, to more than six million —

many parents have come to recognize that their own behavior is

symptomatic of those disorders, sometimes in a major, but more

commonly, in a minor way. In effect, the diagnosis may spread from

the child to other family members, forcing each to confront family

frustrations and idiosyncrasies that they might prefer to have left

unacknowledged.

" It happens very frequently, with all sorts of disorders, from

attention-deficit difficulties to mood problems like bipolar

disorder, " said Dr. Fritz, a child psychiatrist and academic

director of Bradley Hospital in Providence, R.I., the largest child-

psychiatry hospital in the country. " Sometimes it's a real surprise,

because the child is the first one in the family ever to get a

thorough evaluation and history. The parents are there, and they

begin to see the pattern. "

But diagnosing an adult through his or her child has its risks,

psychiatrists say. In an act of solidarity, parents may exaggerate

similarities between their thinking and behavior and their son's or

daughter's. Families desperate to find a diagnosis for a troubled

child are also prone to adopt a vague label — bipolar disorder, say,

which is not well understood in young children — and attribute all

variety of difficulties to it, when the real source may be elsewhere.

But psychological experts say traces of a disorder in the family tree

are very often real, and the stickier issue is what to do once they

surface.

Depending on the family, for instance, one parent may not want to

shoulder the responsibility for having " passed on " the behavior

problem, they say. " The adult may have spent a lifetime compensating

for the problem, as well, and is still struggling with it and would

rather not be identified that way, " said Dania Jekel, executive

director of the Asperger's Association of New England.

Openness can nonetheless have its benefits, say parents who have

chosen to accept their contribution to a child's diagnosis. Self-

examination, for instance, may lead to an appropriate diagnosis for

the adult.

Norine Eaton, 51, of ville, N.Y., reared two boys who were

diagnosed with attention deficit disorders. " The younger one was

literally climbing out second-floor windows, climbing bookcases, onto

counters, " she said. " Nothing was safe in the house. It was insanity. "

After the boy and his brother each received a diagnosis of attention

deficit disorder, Ms. Eaton sought treatment at the Center for

Children and Families at the State University at Buffalo, where she

now works. She soon began thinking about her own behavior, past and

present. She had long had difficulty focusing on even simple jobs,

like paying bills on time and remembering and keeping appointments.

She decided to have one of her sons' psychologists evaluate her for

attention problems. The symptoms of attention deficit disorder, which

some scientists now see as a temporary delay in the maturing of the

brain, can last through adulthood, but it almost always shows up

first in childhood. To make a proper diagnosis, doctors like to see

some evidence of a problem in childhood — evidence that can be hard

to come by.

" In my case, I went to school here in Buffalo, and I dug through some

boxes and found reports going back to elementary school, " Ms. Eaton

said. " Sure enough, they said things like, `Disorganized,' and `Has

trouble paying attention.' "

She now takes a stimulant medication, she said, that helps her focus

enough to compensate for the problem, by making calendars, notes to

herself, and responding to invitations and messages on time. Once

it's out in the open, knowledge of a parent's diagnosis or behavioral

tendencies can ease strained relations in a family, especially if the

previously unappreciated disability contributed to the rupture.

Halpern, 76, a retired physicist living in Massachusetts, began

to review his own life not long after hearing a radio interview with

an expert on Asperger's syndrome. He immediately recognized himself

as a textbook case, he said, and decided to call his daughter, whom

he hadn't spoken to in 10 years. He wanted to apologize, he

said, " for my inadequacy as both a father and a husband to her

mother. "

But as soon as he started explaining, he said, his daughter cut him

off. " That's Asperger's, " she told him. " She knew, " he said. " She had

been looking into it herself, wondering if in fact I had it. "

Mr. Halpern said that over several calls they shared feelings and

agreed " to work on our new relationship and see how far we can take

it. " The two now talk regularly, at least once a week, he said.

Children made miserable by a psychiatric or developmental disorder

may not always want company; but they often long for evidence that

they aren't the only ones putting a burden on the family, some

psychiatrists say. Having a parent with the same quirks who can talk

about it eases the guilt a child may feel. The child has a fellow

traveler, and in some families maybe more.

" When we got reports that our son was not interacting in school, that

he was very quiet, slouching, unusual — we said, `Well, that's us;

our family is like that,' " said Shanfield, 54, a social worker

living in Newton, Mass.

AFTER her son's difficulties were diagnosed as a learning deficit, a

neuro-lingual disorder, she quickly identified some of the same

traits in herself. " It was very therapeutic for me, " she said. " I had

known I was different from an early age, and now I had a definition

that could at least explain some of that. I also told my father, a

man now in his 80s, and he was very moved by it. " He has since talked

openly about painful memories from growing up, and during his time

raising his own family, that were all but off-limits before, she

said, and become more tolerant of his own past mistakes and others'.

It can alter the present, too, if parent and child have enough common

ground. Mr. Schwarz, the software developer in Framingham, said he

became in some ways like a translator for his son, who's now 16.

" I think there are a lot of parents of kids with these diagnoses who

have at least a little bit of the traits their kids have, " Mr.

Schwarz said. " But because of the stigma this society places on

anything associated with disability, they're inhibited from embracing

that part of themselves and fully leveraging it to help their kids. "