Health Issues is a general health based blog concentrating on multiple health topics.

“Whether counseling a younger child is different from counseling a teenager depends on the age of the child, the child’s level of understanding, and the child’s problems. Let me tell you about Jenny, who was nine years old when I first met her. She was a bright youngster, one of four children. Her mother was a former nurse and had a fair amount of medical knowledge about epilepsy. The father had gone back to law school at night, so the family was under real financial stress. In addition to caring for the family, her mom was working two jobs. Let me tell you, tensions in that family were real high.

“Jenny had several seizures, but that wasn’t the reason she was referred to us. She was initially referred because her doctor thought she might have a degenerative brain disease. Over the previous year, she had deteriorated dramatically, both at school and at home. She was always sick with headaches or stomach aches and was missing a fair amount of school. Visits to the doctor’s office weren’t helping the family financial problems, either. Neither her mother nor her physician could tell what was related to the seizures or to the medication or what was psychological. She had become a very belligerent and disruptive child, causing havoc in the family. Her actual seizures were not that bad, but the family was disintegrating, even though they wanted to stay together.

“Jenny’s behavior was the main issue at our first meeting. She didn’t like taking medicine. She didn’t like being sick and going to the doctors. All kids seek attention, but some do not distinguish between attention for the positive things they do and attention for misbehaving. Jenny was not always aware of what she was doing. Her temper outbursts and not feeling well took up much of the limited time this family had for each other. Her brother and sister resented all the attention and concern Jen was getting, and they let her know it; they also began to manifest the same symptoms in attempts to draw attention to themselves. The family was a mess. This is a good example of how epilepsy becomes a family problem, not just a problem for the affected individual.

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