On a hot summer day last month, Sydney, 15, and Laney, 8, were enjoying their last two weeks of freedom before school started. The sisters tried to do flips over a high bar at a local playground.
“You’ve got to pull your hips into the bar, like you’ve got to kick up like that,” explained their mother, Selena.
“I tried to kick! I did this — you told me not to stick out,” said Laney indignantly.
Both girls have been diagnosed with mental illnesses — Sydney with bipolar disorder and Laney with a similar illness called disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. The family asked that their last name not be used to protect the girls’ privacy.
School has been a real challenge for them. That’s not unusual for the 1 in 5 children with a mental illness. They often suffer anxiety, difficulty focusing and social challenges. Half of themdrop out of high school, in part because many schools don’t manage to meet their needs.
[For more of this story, written by Jenny Gold, go to http://khn.org/news/parents-of...-services-at-school/]
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