Two Approaches to Psychological Problems in Children

When I come across an article like "How Quiet is Too Quiet? When Shyness is Actually a Disorder," I always recall the line from Robert Persig's classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones.

This article is exactly what Persig is talking about. In it, a mother, Kim O'Connell, recounts her experience with her son Declan's extended periods of complete silence, which she discovered has a name: Selective Mutism.

So science has added another category, that's what science is all about. It's a process that began with Aristotle. It's called classification. Selective Mutism is unique, requiring unique handling, unique treatment and possibly unique drugs--multiplication of facts, etc., leading from single absolute truths (root causes, if you will) to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones. The child's behavior, in other words, is meaningless. These are just symptoms of a disease that he's come by at random.

Tantrums: Tolle vs. APA

The American Psychiatric Association recently introduced its first revision to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 16 years. The "bible" of the psychiatric field, the DSM, as it's called, has wide-ranging impact upon mental healthcare and society at large. It's revision has taken ten years so far and has a least another two to go before the new disorders it proposes will reach the quivers of healthcare professionals.

The APA is recommending some 41 changes in the area of childhood disorders ranging from learning disorders to retardation (can the APA still use this word?) to the relationship of Asperger's Disorder to autism.

Among the proposed new childhood disorders is one called "Temper Dysregulation Disorder with Dysphoria." This proposed disorder occurs between the years of six and ten and "is characterized by severe recurrent temper outbursts in response to common stressors."

Or in a word, tantrums.

The opposite of a 'Tiger Father': leaving your children behind

Frank Rizzuto

Frank Rizzuto says that he never wanted to be a father.

"I had this idea that fatherhood was this really all-encompassing thing," he explained on the Today Show, where he was talking about his new memoir,"Hiroshima in the Morning." "I was afraid of being swallowed up by that."

Ten years ago, when his sons were 5 and 3, Rizzuto received a fellowship to spend six months in Japan, researching a book about the survivors of Hiroshima. Four months in, when his children came to visit, he had an epiphany: He didn't want to be a full-time father anymore. When he returned to New York, he ended his 20-year marriage and chose not to be his kids' custodial parent.


[This is a parody!]