Sorry for the gap in blogs

Sorry for the gap in blogs… court cases… summer… and my own family have really kept me busy…

… a Google search reveals that in 2003, 2.8 billion pounds of coffee were imported into the United States with 18.7 million pounds being classified as fair trade coffee.

Enlightening, huh?

In 2000, there were 133.6 million registered cars, 7 million buses and 87.0 million trucks.

The United States uses 385 million gallons of gasoline each day. Wow!

The number of saw-whet owls migrating through Pennsylvania was 250 during the most recent survey. Interesting?

How many children have a neuropsychological or psychological disorder? Ummm.

How many children have depression? anxiety disorders? post-traumatic stress disorder? autism? receptive language disorders?

Google them!

The answer… no one knows!

We can track down financial minutia (the prospectus for my 401K plan is 47 pages long), but we don’t know the prevalence of autism in children? We have daily television programs devoted to financial matters, home improvement/repairs (financial matters), gardening (financial matters), courtroom dramas… we are fed 50+ soap operas each week and how much time is devoted to our children?

We have five full-time 24-7 television stations devoted to sports and we can chart A-Rod’s batting average by week or month during the past four years but we do not know the number of children who will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder this year!

Appalled? Try a little closer to home. How much did you spend on your last pair of athletic shoes? How much did you spend on your child’s athletic shoes? Now, how many hours did you spend with your children last year in athletic activities?

If your total cost (average parent plus child combined athletic shoe cost = $100+) exceeds the number of hours you spent with your child in those activities during the past year, put down the coffee cup, get out of the car, shut off the television and find your child. Spending time with your child or children is like putting love and life energy into your child’s “bank”. And for parents who are willing to make the investment, the benefit is that these same parents are in a position to make “withdrawals” in the form of making requests of their children to contribute to the home, to do chores… to obey the rules… to be good citizens in the family.

Our communities… our politicians… billboards… newspaper articles all broadcast our intense interest in and support for our children… “our children are our future”… “it takes a whole village to raise a child”… “the year (month, week, day, etc.) of the child”… but is it true???

Want to see what people think is important? … follow the dollars (recall “Show me the money!!”) Money is a symbol of our life energy and effort (we exchange our life energy/effort for money)… so where people put their money is where they invest their life energy. Purchases serve as our votes on how we are choosing to live our lives and what is important. What is in your budget? What is in the Budget for your state or the United States? Not children!!! Especially our poorest children who have the highest risk factors, who have Medical Assistance (MA), who provides the poorest reimbursement for services (we lose $10.00 per hour on MA), who professionals often avoid seeing because of the lack of reimbursement.

Einstein’s Relativity

“I am a foster parent. My (foster) child appears angry with periods of rage and depression along with acting out, aggression… he can’t sleep at night, can’t sit still… and has basically no friends because he plays too rough. His family background is a mess… father is incarcerated, mother has a long drug history with multiple paramours, alcohol abuse, domestic violence. We have been told that he as ADHD, ODD and bi-polar disorder. He has "failed" trials on three different psychostimulants and now is taking some kind of cocktail that includes three medications at one time. Are his problems biological or environmental?” Hmmmm…

… this may take a minute to formulate a theoretical background… but please be patient with me… Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity” boiled down to its child-like essence goes something like this. As a boy, young Einstein would sit along the railroad tracks and watch the trains go by. In his book, Relativity, he recalls wondering what would happen if someone threw a ball up in the air while riding on a moving train. What would it look like? Well, if you were on the moving train the ball would travel in an arc … and one could actually construct a mathematical equation that would define the arc. But, if you were sitting beside the train tracks, the ball would travel straight up and down in a line and you could construct a mathematic equation that would define the line. Both are mathematical truths! So, which is true? Does the ball travel in an arc or line? The answer… it depends on the relative position of the observer.

Hmmmm… what does that have to do with neuropsychology in general or your child, in particular? Is a symptom/problem related to a physiological disorder (mass) or a psychological disorder (energy)? The answer? Yes… it is both… any symptom/problem will have both physiological (brain/body) and psychological (energy/spiritual) components. The implication is that a holistic approach that seeks to understand both physiological and psychological contributions to symptoms is critical… and that interventions must necessarily consider both physiological and psychological factors. The physician who treats only the body is a fool as equally as the psychologist who only treats the psyche… the mind and body are simply two aspects or perspectives of the same person… and treatments must consider both avenues.

What does this have to do with your child? It means that your activities, relationship, home environment, emotional tone, etc. are as critical to your child’s healing as the medication. Oftentimes we look to wizards (ie., physicians, psychologist, etc.) to treat the body and feel powerless or impotent to affect outcomes. Your efforts are central to healing!!!

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Dr. Richard Dowell is a Neuropsychologist located in Pennsylvania. Dr. Dowell evaluates upwards of 400 children and adolescents each year. In addition, Dr. Dowell is recognized as one of the top Forensic Neuropsychological witnesses in the North East.

Dr. Dowell can be contacted at DrDowell@NeuropsychologicalServices.net

For more information on Neuropsychology visit NeuropsychologicalServices.net