Part II: The Way Mike Worked -- The Paperboy and the Bully

The Smithsonian exhibit, "The Way We Worked," arrives in Cheyenne later this month. I thought about my jobs during 55 years, from neighborhood newspaper delivery to arts administration. That history tells me a lot about myself and about the changing workplace.

I didn't have a paid job until I was in sixth grade. I helped my buddy Bill deliver the afternoon Wichita paper. Not sure how much I made. Some of it went toward buying Boy Scout uniforms. I probably spent the rest frivolously. Bill did most of the collecting, the most odious part of the job. I sometimes accompanied him on his rounds.

Let's harken back to the days of two-newspaper towns. Remember those? It's not ancient history. Denver was home to the Post and the Rocky Mountain News. When I moved from Florida to Denver in 1978, the tabloid News was the morning paper and the Post was delivered in the afternoon. They both went to morning delivery in the 1980s. The News no longer exists. The Post is held captive by a hedge-fund group and is rapidly shedding its editorial staff in favor of fat profits.

I am old enough to remember the golden age of newspapers, an era that ended with the Internet although its death knells could be heard with the advent of network TV news and, later, the dawn of the personal computer.

Newspapers were big employers in every city. Reporters gathered the news, photogs shot the pictures, and editors edited. In newsrooms of 1978, you could call for a copy boy or copy girl to come get your typed (in triplicate) story and take it to the editors' desk. Hot copy was set by typesetters who wore boxy paper hats. Route Men delivered papers and paperboys (and a few girls) threw them on porches. Each paper had a physical clip morgue and a staff to do research. Advertising fielded a big staff to keep subscribers happy. There were ad designers and artists. The Post building was located where the convention center hotel is now. Hundreds of people worked there. All those hungry people patronized area restaurants. You wouldn't be surprised to learn that local saloons did a booming business. The same was true at the News with offices on Colfax.

In 1962 Wichita, Kan., the early risers delivered the Eagle in the morning and my friend Bill and I delivered the Beacon in the afternoons after school. Trucks delivered the papers to Bill's house and I came over to fold and deliver. On most days, the papers were not huge. Most days, Bill and I folded the newspapers without using rubber bands. You would think that the package would be become undone as we tossed them to anxious customers. But they didn't. At least, that's how I remember it. I remember Bill and I sailed them like mini-Frisbees onto porches in the tree-lined College Hill neighborhood. It was a given that papers must land on every customer's porch. Sometimes, the elderly asked us to put it inside their front door or in the milk box that sat under the mail box. That was a wooden box that held the milk delivered by the milkman at about the same time early-rising paperboys were delivering the Eagle. Milkmen finished their rounds by the time the sun rose. They often had a friendly relationship with the woman of the house. This gave rise to a joke about some kids looking more like the milkman than their daddy. Sixth-graders liked these type of teasing jokes, put-downs if you will, throwing shade as the kids say now, or they did last week, anyway. Sometimes it was the mailman, and it was always a man back then. Sometimes it was the handyman or the furnace man or the repair man. The women were at home. The men were there to take care of the home's various needs. Sounds quaint, now, doesn't it? A well-ordered universe, one that conservatives dream about. If only it were that simple.

Lots of paperboys delivered by Schwinn. We walked our paper route. The bungalow-style homes were built at the turn of the last century and were closely spaced. Often, they were perched at the top of a six-foot rise. It was easier for us to walk the route, taking shortcuts along the way. Out in the suburbs, developers were building ranch homes with breathing room which caused many a paperboy to deliver via bicycle. And porches? There might be one, but usually it was a concrete slab that led up to the front door. Most family activity was moving to the big fenced-in backyard.

We sometimes delivered papers to porches where the occupants were out front, maybe watering the flowers or catching a breeze on a hot day or just waiting for the news of the world or, at least, Wichita. We were obligated to hand deliver then. Old folks, then and now, were anxious to chat as they might be alone all day and anxious for human contact. We had to make it quick, as papers had to be delivered on time. The old folks who wanted to chat were usually those who complained if the paper was late. As a 12-year-old, I only had a vague idea of the lives of the elderly. I was a kid. These people were born in the last century, before airplanes and TV and Elvis. What could I learn from them?

I had one challenge. A bully circulated in our neighborhood. His name was Jack Weird. I didn't make that up -- that's how I remember the name. Maybe my memory has clouded, he may have had the nickname Weird Jack which is entirely possible. But Jack was gunning for me and I never knew why. I would be walking don the street, papers stuffed in my canvas Beacon bag, and around the corner came Jack. Sometimes he was with a bully friend. Other times he was alone. I knew what was coming but just kept on making my rounds. Bill was on the other side of the street or the next block. That was a shame because Bill had a rep as a fighter and Jack Weird never bothered him. Jack closed on me and I could see his evil leer. When he got even with me, he shoved aside my bag, punched me in the stomach, and kept walking. Now, I have to admire his economy of movement. No time wasted on verbal abuse or actually pounding me into the ground, which would take time and effort. Just one punch -- Bam! -- and on he went. Until the next time he saw me walking down the street, on the way to school or a Scout meeting. But only if I was alone. If I was with anybody, he walked on by. If he was with someone, he punched me and kept on walking. Odd what you remember. I often wonder what happened to Jack Weird.

I served a year as an assistant paperboy. Our family moved that summer, 1963, to the suburbs, closer to the air force base where my father was a civilian employee. I had no paper route. I transferred to a Catholic school, St. Francis. I had a crush on a neighbor girl. I began playing basketball because, for the first time, a coach asked me to go out for the team. I knew so little about the game. One blustery winter day I wore my long johns to a game. I rolled them up so they would be invisible under my shorts. As I jogged down the court, one of the long john leggings unraveled, much to the delight of the other team. I made a quick repair but my teammates teased me about it the rest of the season. I put up with it, I suppose, because that's what teammates did. You could be bullied, teased, cajoled, punched. That's the way it was. It's a different world now.

My only job in the 'burbs was to take care of my brothers and sisters. My mom had delivered twins in June and was more than busy with them. I made my siblings sandwiches. Took them outside to play. Fixed their cuts and scrapes. My brother Dan helped with the first aid. We were both Scouts and proud of our lifesaving skills. We could rescue a careless swimmer. We could make splints and tourniquets. We knew what to do in case of rattlesnake bite. The Shay kids were the safest kids on the block.

JFK was murdered in November 1963. In the new year, Dad was transferred back to Denver. We lived in a motel while waiting for renters to move out of the house we left in 1960 when Dad hauled us off to Washington state and then Kansas. Again, my job was watching my siblings. I was going to get a job, maybe a paper route, but fate intervened when my dad was laid off by his aerospace conglomerate. He found a job with GE in Florida. Florida? Jeez, we were moving all over the damn place. Snakes and alligators! Hurricanes! But, we were mostly excited to live by the ocean. Mostly.

Next: Teen jobs in Florida.

The Summer of Love; the Winter of Our Discontent

I laughed when I saw the cover of the Aug./Sept. issue of AARP: The Magazine. Over a Peter Max original illustration was the header: "Celebrate the Summer of Love, 50th anniversary, 1967-2017."

I was almost as far away from San Francisco as a 16-year-old could get in the summer of 1967. In the waning days of summer, I was about to become a junior at Father Lopez Catholic High School in Daytona Beach, Florida.

That summer, my classmates thought that I was moving to a new life in Cincinnati, Ohio. My father was already in Cincy, crunching numbers at the General Electric Works. He moved as did so many others -- Florida's aerospace industry had come to a grinding halt.

But what about the moon landing, the one that was still two years in the future? Much of the prep work was finished. NASA and its many subcontractors (GE among them) didn't need all the engineers and statisticians and accountants that they had brought to Central Florida for the task. An engineer friend of my Dad was pumping gas. Others found tourist-industry jobs so they could continue to enjoy the splendors of The Sunshine State.

Two of my friends, Rob and Ann, had already decamped with their families to Schenectady, N.Y., another big base for GE, the one where Kurt Vonnegut once toiled in PR ("Deer in the Works"). Classmates had thrown us a going-away party. Good-bye and good luck!

I was registered to attend another Catholic high school, this one an all-boys school in Cincy that I was certain to hate. I was not a kid who made friends easily. I would not make the basketball team, as the new school was big and had a hot-shot varsity already in place. If I ever met any girls, Catholic or otherwise, they would ignore me. My good grades were due to take a nose dive and I was destined for failure. This was my dark side speaking, teen angst on overdrive. If I wrote poetry then -- and kept it -- it would be something to read. But I was a jock and a surfer and my type didn't write emo poems or any kind of poems. Or so I thought.

My mother worked at a local hospital and still had a two-year-old at home, along with eight other kids. We couldn't sell our house. All the buyers were on their way back north. Prices plummeted. My father said that he missed his wife Anna and his nine kids. Dad left me his 1960 Renault Dauphine so I could take my siblings to school and basketball practice and anywhere else they had to go. I was delighted to have a car and a license to go on the many dates I imagined that I would have.

After six months, my father surprised us all when he decided to leave GE and try to get a job in central Florida. My future was saved.

It wasn't easy for my father. He was a quiet man. I can imagine his life as a bookish professor or a secluded monk, a man without a huge family and all the pressures that brings. As a kid, he spent his time going to the library and building crystal radio sets in his basement. He wasn't a striver or a climber, which doomed him from the start in the corporate world. I know, as I spent five years as a corporate man, twenty-five years in government. I am an introvert but learned how to be a public person. I was tasked with supporting my family. I did that. But there always is a cost, and you may not know about it until you are retired.

My Dad returned to Florida late that summer. When school started, he was looking for a job. My mom worked as a nurse at a local hospital. We were together again.

What was life like in August 1967 for the average American big family? My parents never had enough money. Both worked, a rarity in 1967. Still, it was never enough. Most of the people we knew were in the same boat.

The Summer of Love? To us, hippies were an anomaly. I thought they were cool but their antics were foreign to me. Sex was dreamed of but an impossible dream, to take a line from a popular 1960s Broadway musical. We sweated and groped in the back seats of cars. There were public school girls who went all the way, or so the public school boys told us. But that wasn't for us.

Remember that this was pre-Disney Florida. Before the boom that caused the founding of dozens of fantasy worlds and caused everyone in Providence and Newark to relocate to Daytona and Sarasota. If it was a feature at Disney, it would be called "A Whole Different World World."

It's a Whole Different World World
It's a Whole Different World World
Segregated schools, no sex on the beaches
Swamps teeming with gators and leeches
It's a Whole Different World World after all

Don't get me wrong -- we admired those people engaging in unbridled sex and drug-taking in The Haight. We might have followed the lead of our parents and cursed those damn hippies. We were fascinated and jealous at the same time. It just seemed so foreign.

Happy 50th anniversary to all of you who engaged in the Summer of Love and lived to tell the tale.

Summer of '67. We all have our stories....

The Great D&D Panic of the 1990s

BBC just featured a story about "The Great Dungeons & Dragons Panic of the 1980s."

For our family, it was "The Great Dungeons & Dragons Panic of the 1990s."

Our son Kevin was a big D&D fan. He and his junior high buddies used to crowd around the kitchen table with their chips and Mountain Dew and play D&D into the wee hours. This was also the time of The Great Columbine Panic of 1999, in which parents all along the Front Range were inspecting their teen boys of any predilection for walking into school and murdering a dozen of their classmates. The two scares went hand in hand, joining the usual paranoia that goes along with raising a teen in America.

Later, in the new century, we got to add terrorism and joining the military and drug use and suicide into this heady brew. It's a wonder our boys -- most of them -- made it into adulthood.

In the BBC article, veteran roleplayer Andy Smith sums of the panic this way:

"The view of roleplaying games has changed over time, mostly because the predicted 'streets awash with the blood of innocents as a horde of demonically-possessed roleplayers laid waste to the country' simply never materialised."

"Materialised" with an "s." I love the Brits.

Kevin's role-playing friends included a young man who hated school and grew up to be an accomplished truck mechanic, another young man with an active imagination who now spends most of his time in his mother's basement, another who is a computer guy with a very good IT job, another who is in a rock band in Denver and makes some fine home-brewed beer, and at least one girl -- I don't know what she's doing these days. And then it gets difficult. Two of members of this roleplaying crowd are no longer with us. Both dead by suicide in their 20s. One hung himself and one blew his brains out with a gun. I went to both of their funerals and have only been more sad at the funerals of two of my brothers, dead from pneumonia and cancer.

One of these young men was a very talented artist. He had just finished art school in Denver and had returned to Cheyenne. Not sure what happened to make him take the final plunge. He was a mysterious teen. He wore one of those long western coats to school, the same coat worn by the two killers at Columbine. After April 20, 1999, junior high administrators told him to stop wearing the coat to school. He refused. His diminutive German-born mother went toe-to-toe with school officials and got them to back off. Last time I saw here was at her son's funeral. I will always wonder what was going through her head that day.

The other casualty of those years was a skateboarder who couldn't go straight. He was a hardcore druggie and just seemed to be getting his life back on track when his young wife found him hanging in the closet. I remember him as a friendly kid whom I didn't want my son to hang out with. But he did. He later went to drug treatment for a year. He still has some struggles but graduated from community college and lives a thousand miles away with his girlfriend who seems nice on the phone.

So did D&D have anything to do with these later life traumas? I am not sure. Some innocent blood was spilled, but the violence was mostly self-inflicted. My wife Chris and I were concerned with D&D overdose at the time. When we asked Kevin about it, he thought we were being silly. Just wait until he brings kids into this crazy world.

Those roleplaying D&D kids always seemed to have such a raucous good time. A bunch of likable nerds.

Dear Gov. Mead: Make Wyoming a healthier place by embracing Medicaid expansion

When Rodger McDaniel writes about mental health and substance abuse treatment in Wyoming, he knows his subjects. Under Gov. Dave Freudenthal, the Rev. McDaniel was Director of the Mental Health Health and Substance Abuse Division of the Wyoming Health Department. Today in his blog (and on the op-ed pages of the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle), he makes the modest proposal that the Great Conservative State of Wyoming should embrace Medicaid expansion. It's a hard sell because Wyoming and its Governor were parties to the Affordable Care Act lawsuit that recently was spured by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court. Read on:

The enormous investment Wyoming made in mental health and substance abuse treatment in the last decade puts the state in a position to cash in big on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Governor Mead and state legislators should weigh the opportunity before rushing to join other Republican governors rejecting federal funding of Medicaid expansion. 

Today Wyoming taxpayers spend more than 95 million dollars each budget period on mental health and substance abuse services. If Wyoming implements the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, most of that money can be returned to the general fund.

Read the rest here.

Wyoming is not always a trailblazer when it comes to mental health and substance abuse programs. But its Children's Medicaid Waiver has been a godsend to many Wyoming families in crisis. The Medicaid Waiver has helped both uninsured and underinsured families who've sent their children to a treatment program that is usually hours away from home, often out-of-state. When our daughter was diagnosed as bipolar, we had to send her to treatment for four months in Colorado and seven months in Casper. We signed her up for the Medicaid Waiver which kicked in when our insurance company limited her treatment. Before Obamacare, insurance companies either placed caps on mental health treatment or disallowed it as a pre-exisiting condition. The same held true for substance abuse treatment. When our son needed help for substance abuse almost ten years ago, our insurance lapsed after 50 treatment sessions. Since he was in a residential center and had daily sessions, the insurance was up way before the therapy could bear fruit -- nine months before he successfully returned home, clean and sober. We spent my father's inheritance to pay for some of the treatment and our son worked on the center's landscaping crew to pay for the rest. Expensive but worth it.


Many other families share our experience. Others will face problems in the future. The Medicaid Waiver helped pay for our daughter's treatment and for the "wraparound care" that followed her return to the home. A treatment team of parents, siblings, relatives, friends -- led by a certified mental health professional -- guided her back into her community. This beats the old approach of letting our teens sink or swim on their own, which didn't work our too well. Teens with mental illnesses or substance abuse problems have enough problems without having to readjust to school and home and work all by themselves.


Many families never use the Medicaid Waiver or similar programs because they don't know about it. There's a great statewide organization, UPLIFT, that is a resource for these services. I'm on the UPLIFT board and that's how I found out about the waiver. Get more info by calling UPLIFT at 307-778-8686. And be not afraid to go directly to the source at the Wyoming state offices. Yes, I know, it's a big state agency located in a monolithic grey building. But you can talk to real people there -- I did.


This web site is a good place to start: http://www.health.wyo.gov/mhsa/treatment/SystemofCare.html. As you'll see, the waiver program is now focused on keeping the child in the community by providing that wraparound care I talked about earlier.


I do not know how Obamacare, with or without Medicaid expansion, will affect these programs. But in a time of budget cuts in state funds, more Medicaid money from the Feds is a good thing, is it not?


No surprise that health care will be a major topic at this week's National Governors Association conference in Virginia. Also on the agenda is a discussion about the needs of military members returning home from the wars. Gov. Mead co-chairs the NGA committee addressing this issue. Some of the most pressing needs involved mental health care, not only for veterans but their families. The Veteran's Administration Hospital in Cheyenne recently expanded its services by hiring four new psychologists. 

Wyoming ACLU: Keep track of anti-choice HJ7 in Wyoming Legislature

Wyoming ACLU tracking anti-choice bill in Wyoming House. The right-wing whackadoodles are at it again. Read more at http://acluwyomingchapter.blogspot.com/2012/02/action-needed-to-stop-resolution-hj7.html

It's important to "Step Up for Kids" in October in Wyoming

With Wyoming Tea Party Republican legislators refusing to step up for our children on so many issues – early childhood education, health care, mental health issues, daycare standards, juvenile justice, poverty rates -- it's more important than ever to "Step Up for Kids."

That's what a lot of us will be doing across Wyoming in October. Sponsored by Wyoming Children's Action Alliance.

Here's the rundown:

The fourth annual Step Up for Kids Week is taking place throughout the communities and

counties of Wyoming the week of October 8-15. The purpose of these events is to

bring hundreds of people together to raise awareness of all children’s issues and the need

for investment in children in our local communities, our state and our nation.

These are dates and activities across the state.

October 9-13 - GILLETTE

A series of advertisements/articles will run in the Gillette paper. Articles will focus on children’s issues and parenting tips.

October 11^th  CASPER:  “Kids:  A Long Term Investment”

First Interstate Plaza – Corner of First and Center Streets

10:30 a.m. Two booths, one on health care, staffed by Barb Rea; one with materials about the value of quality child care, developed and staffed by Dianna Webb and Deb Nelson.

11:30 – Refreshments available.

Noon – Program begins. Program Emcee Heidi Dickerson welcomes crowd, notes theme, and introduces mayor or other city representative.

·     Proclamation read by Mayor/City Council Members

·     Students from Woods Elementary introduce former State Representative Ann Robinson. Ann speaks about opportunity for Wyoming Legislature to invest in children

·     Students from Woods Elementary introduce Parent Pam McMichael. Pam speaks about value of investing in Head Start

·     Student from Woods Elementary introduces Jackie Brown or Chelsea DiPaolo. Chelsea speaks about Gear Up

·    Woods student introduces B&G Youth of the Year - Youth of Year introduces B&G Club staffer who was a critical mentor - B&G Club staffer (yet to be identified) talks about working w/YOY and long-term commitment to kids

·    Woods student introduces Bethany Cutts - Cutts talks about the importance of early childhood development and the importance of high quality care to all children, whether in public or private programs or care centers; calls for state investment in quality care.

October 11^th - RAWLINS

Carbon County Higher Education Main Campus, 705 Rodeo – Classroom #1

5:30 – 7:00 pm Family information booths

7:00-8:30  p.m.  Linda Burt-Director of Wyoming ACLU

                                Juvenile Justice in Wyoming

October 14^th – EVANSTON AND MOUNTAIN VIEW

Evanston Child Development Center:
March For Kids

Our Children will walk/parade to our local government buildings/courthouse. There we will have a guest speaker (tent. Mayor Joy Bell). This event will be advertised in our Center Newsletters and Local Newspaper. Children will then parade back to the Center for a bbq. During the month of October we plan to have flyers and information available for parents on child growth and development, etc.

October 14^th - The Children's Learning Foundation:
March For Kids

Same idea as ECDC

Saturday, October 15^th - CHEYENNE

Lions Park Community House

10 am - 12 noon

Fun Activities For Kids & Community Resource

Information For Parents!

Put your kids first, Wyoming

UPLIFT Executive Director Peggy Nickell was interviewed for the latest edition of Wyoming Kids First. We're all hoping that the State of Wyoming will put its very considerable fiscal resources into its most precious natural resource -- its children. The overall political atmosphere does not look favorable for this, as selfishness and stupidity are on the rise in state and national politics.

Still, Peggy Nickell provides a voice of reason in a difficult time. In the name of full disclosure, I must claim my role of UPLIFT board member since 1998. Here are some kind and wise words from Ms. Nickell:

Question from Wyoming Kids First: In your opinion, what is the most important thing Wyoming can do for its children?

Peggy Nickell: Wyoming is fortunate to have the resources to ensure that all children have a good start to life. The first five years are so critical in the development of children. It all starts with prenatal care and education and then home visiting nursing services for first time moms. It is hard to list one thing because every component of early childhood care, education, and services are so important but it does have to start before these precious children take their first breath of Wyoming’s clean mountain air!

Suicide prevention topic of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Summit March 30-31 in Laramie

The University of Wyoming Counseling Center hosts its fourth annual Higher Education Mental Health and Substance Abuse Summit March 30-31 at the UW Conference in the Hilton Garden Inn in Laramie. The topic is suicide prevention.

This is an especially important topic for the state's young people. For young people everywhere. Suicide ranks third as a cause of death among young (15-24) Americans behind accidents and homicides.

"Mental health, suicide, and substance abuse are topics that affect college students and those working with college students regularly," says Lena Newlin, UW Alcohol Wellness Alternatives, Research and Education (AWARE) Program coordinator. "It is important for professionals working with college students to have the understanding and skills on how to best address these issues. This summit will provide an opportunity for training and collaboration to people throughout Wyoming who work with college students."

Several professionals in their respective fields are the scheduled speakers during the summit. Harry Rockland-Miller, Ph.D, will present the clinicians training, which will provide an advanced clinical training program known as "Recognizing and Responding to Suicide Risk."

The training is offered through the American Association of Suicidology and is based on established core competencies that mental health professionals need to effectively assess and manage suicide risk. Rockland-Miller is director of the Center for Counseling and Psychological Health, and an associate director of University Health Services at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Rockland-Miller is a trainer and consultant in areas including college mental health, clinical triage, suicide prevention and mental health care delivery. Other clinical interests include crisis intervention, brief therapy and hospital-based treatment.

Kathy Cordell, of Cheyenne, a life coach specializing in medical care, will present the two-day training designed for non-clinicians. Cordell will share her knowledge and techniques of Motivational Interviewing (MI). MI is a student/client-centered, directive method for enhancing intrinsic motivation to change by exploring and resolving ambivalence.

Cordell has an established background working in community healthcare. She has had extensive training in motivational interviewing techniques and facilitates MI training sessions at medical institutions throughout Wyoming to broaden the scope of screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment for substance use.

A pre-conference Gatekeeper's train-the-trainer workshop will be held a day before the actual event Tuesday March, 29. UW's Gatekeeper's training program teaches participants how to recognize the signs and symptoms of someone who might be suicidal and how to refer them to seek professional help.

A lunch presentation Wednesday will feature Keith Hotle from the Wyoming Department of Health.

For more information about the event, presenters, schedule, accommodations or to register, visit the summit website at http://www.uwyo.edu/ucc/summit/index.html

For more information, contact Newlin, in the UW Counseling Center at (307) 766-2187 or e-maillnewlin@uwyo.edu

Photo: Harry Rockland-Miller, director of the Center for Counseling and Psychological Health at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, will provide an advanced clinical training program known as "Recognizing and Responding to Suicide Risk." (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

In "Easy to Love but Hard to Raise," parents tell their stories

I'm pleased to have my work included in Easy to Love but Hard to Raise, a book from DRT Press set for an October release. Editors are Adrienne Bashista of Pittsboro, N.C., and Kay Marner of Ames, Iowa. Both are accomplished writers and editors who have experienced struggles in raising their own children. I have been impressed by their thoroughness and kindness. It's evident in their own essays and in their dealings with writers. My snarky self had a hard time with it, at first. One thing I learned early on as a parent with a son diagnosed with ADHD and a daughter with PBD and ADD -- wear your armor when you venture out into the world. My armor is my sharp tongue and, when that fails, scathing wit, to dull the cold hard stares and even colder and harder words of people who don't understand.

It's been a pleasure to work with Kay and Adrienne. Looking forward to the book. Here's some info the editors just posted on the brand new Easy to Love but Hard to Raise blog:

This blog got its start with the book: Easy to Love but Hard to Raise: Real Parents, Challenging Kids, True Stories (DRT Press, October, 2011). Contributors to this blog are connected to the book in some way: they sent in essays, offered their expert advice, or lent helpful thoughts and useful advice.

But our hope for this blog goes further than simply giving our book a presence on the Internet : we’d like our space to be a safe, kind, and understanding resource for anyone raising a child who is easy to love, but difficult to raise. We are here to support, share stories, commiserate, give tips, and provide safe haven for anyone parenting children impacted by ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder), PBD (Pediatric Bipolar Disorder), OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, PDD (Pervasive Developmental Disorder) or any other situation the takes the already difficult job of parenting and adds to challenge.

Wyoming's UPLIFT displays the better side of human nature

It was a week marked by savagery and bravery.

A disturbed young man shoots 18 people in front of a Tucson grocery store. Six of them die, the rest wounded, one -- Rep. Giffords -- critically.

Amidst the slaughter, people rushed to save the wounded and subdue the attacker. You're heard the stories, if not from Cable news than from Pres. Obama's eloquent speech at Wednesday's memorial.

What causes some people to run away from chaos and others to run toward it? I've been asking myself that question all week. Daniel Hernandez ran toward the gunfire and tended to his boss's wounds. He didn't leave her side until the ambulance got her to the hospital. When he spoke Wednesday, we saw a self-confident and self-effacing 20-year-old college student. He's devoted himself to a life of public service. We saw that commitment to both the "public" and "service" parts of the equation this week.

When challenged, we will sacrifice our own lives to help our fellow humans. This is the good side of our nature, the empathetic and charitable side. Researchers announced recently that there is a part of us -- the "altruism gene" -- that promotes charitable instincts. We also know that there are parts of us that respond to the venal and violent.

In the end, which wins out? Physiology is only part of it. Family upbringing makes a difference, as do other role models. Intelligence and education do to too, although we know that many sins have been committed by "the best and brightest." Religion can play a part. Again, many slaughters have been committed by the righteous.

I was thinking of this yesterday during the quarterly board meeting of UPLIFT in Cheyenne. We are a volunteer board of 14 members. We just welcomed a new one, LaWahna Stickney, from Thayne. We now are a truly statewide board, with members from Cheyenne, Laramie, Casper and Thayne. Most of us became involved in children's mental health and behavioral issues because our own children were struggling. Teachers complained that our kids were unruly and defiant. Other parents complained when our children got aggressive on the playground. We were at wit's end at home because we could not understand why our little darlings were such monsters. Weren't we kind and generous and educated human beings?

We were stymied when we attempted to find help in the community. We were either told outright -- or it was implied -- that we were bad parents with bad kids. We knew that wasn't true. By the time our son, Kevin, was five, we'd seen practically every specialist along Colorado's Front Range. We finally found a psychiatrist in Fort Collins, Dr. James Kagan, who diagnosed Kevin with ADHD and helped put us on the right road. That involved medication in the form of Ritalin. Therapy, too. But we still had this weird sense that we were all alone in this, that it was our struggle to bear and understand.

Finding UPLIFT when we moved to Cheyenne gave us some handy tools, especially when it came to dealing with schools. We also found similar struggles among its staff and board. We discovered helpful ways to deal with schools. It was cathartic to share our stories and hear those of others.

Here's UPLIFT's mission statement:

Encouraging success and stability for children and youth with or at risk of emotional, behavioral, learning, developmental, or physical disorders at home, school, and in the community.

UPLIFT just marked its 20th anniversary of service to Wyoming. At yesterday's board meeting, we heard details of our recent financial setbacks. UPLIFT is an organization that gets 97 percent of its funding from governmental (mostly federal) sources. Sometimes you get turned down for grants, and sometimes funding streams dry up. Strings are attached to most government funding. So, while your organization has a significant budget, you may not have enough money to pay for the basics, such as salaries, electricity and a office space. It's a truism in the world of non-profits -- keeping the lights on is the biggest challenge.

UPLIFT had to cut the administration budget. That includes salaries and benefits, including health insurance. Two employees left because that health insurance was crucial to them -- many employees have kids with special needs. One employee moved out of state. The ones that remained not only stayed and worked with their clients around this very rural state, but they even stopped claiming travel reimbursements. Some employees even made cash contributions. That's something, isn't it? Salaries and benefits get cut, yet you still find the means to put some cash in the kitty.

They know that this is a short-term problem. They also know that the cuts bring pain to their boss, Peggy Nikkel. They are certain of the good work they do and don't want it to stop or interrupted. Most of their time is spent working with families. They accompany parents to school meetings, helping them make sense of the requirements with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Individualized Education Programs. At these meetings, the principal and school psychologist and half the teachers are arrayed against you. We have had several of UPLIFT's family support specialists (Judy Bredthauer, for one) at these meetings and it made a huge difference. They are cool and calm and knowledgeable. They can get tough when presented with intransigence. But the main thing is that schools now know that UPLIFT can be trusted. Oftentimes, they welcome the participation of UPLIFT staffers.

As I've recounted often on these pages, Wyoming is a huge, rural state with many challenges when it comes to children's mental health.

UPLIFT, an affiliate of the Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health, fills a huge gap. Its staffers don't provide clinical services, but they are the great connectors between families and those services. They can translate government regulations. For cash-strapped families, they find funding. They make sense of the great big world of mental health.

They are on a mission. Maybe, as were the Blues Brothers, they are on a mission from God. Whatever their motivations, they come from the better side of human nature.

By the way, if you want to stimulate your own better natures, you can donate to UPLIFT by going here.

Looking for help, call toll free 888-875-4383.

Real Wyoming suicide problem trumps imaginary one

From Fox News:

U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis said Friday that some of her Wyoming constituents are so worried about the reinstatement of federal estate taxes that they plan to discontinue dialysis and other life-extending medical treatments so they can die before Dec. 31.

Instead of worrying about some imaginary suicide problem in Wyoming, Lummis could be doing something about a real suicide problem (from an article by Baylie Evans in the 8/28/10 Wyoming Tribune-Eagle):

Since 1999, Wyoming has had one of highest suicide rates in the nation. In 2002, 2003 and 2006, Wyoming had the highest rate of any state.
It's a statistic that many say is unacceptable, but is largely ignored or avoided by the general public.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among Wyoming youth, said Keith Hotle, the suicide prevention team leader with the Wyoming Department of Health. Only car crashes kill more teens.

If a new disease was the second-leading cause of death for youth, "that would be front page news all over the state," he said.

Instead, the topic makes people cringe.

People such as Rep. Lummis, no doubt.

Has she shown similar outrage about this real problem?

Read the rest of WTE's disturbing article at http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2010/08/29/news/01top_08-29-10.txt

Depressed? Get over it, cowboy!

Wyoming teens still engage in risky behavior.

That’s not really news for teens living anywhere or at any time. I must admit that I engaged in some risky behaviors as a lad. Lived to tell the tale and to lament the fact that we don’t seem to be making any progress on this front.

In its Kids Count report, the Annie E. Casey Foundation says this:

Wyoming’s death rate among people 15 to 19 years old, based on accidents, suicides, homicides and other causes, was 86 per 100,000. Only seven other states had a higher rate.

In 2000, Wyoming’s teen death rate was 81 per 100,000.

For our teens, things are getting worse, not better.

And this happening during boom times, a time of budget surpluses and increases in state spending on education and, to a certain extent, health care. This includes boosts in funding for mental health care, too.

So, if throwing money at a problem fixes it, we should all have happy and productive and living teens.

Some of us do not. In 2008, six percent of the state’s teens were not attending school and had not graduated from high school. That’s better than 2000 when that figure was 10 percent. Teen pregnancy is up. Fifty-one births were recorded in 2007 for every 1,000 females 15-19 years old. That was 42 per 1,000 in 2000.

Lots of bad news sprinkled with some good news.

These are more than boring stats for those of us with teen children. Our 17-year-old daughter Annie has engaged in some risky behavior. I’m sure that Chris and I know only some of it. The war on drugs has failed us and our country. Teens seem to get booze any time they want. Annie seems to know more high school drop-outs than kids still in school. There’s a batch of homeless teens in Cheyenne who roam from one friend’s house to another and occasionally sleep under bridges. One only has to wander through the mall to see our town’s array of teen mothers.

One could write a book on this subject, but someone else will have to do that. I just want to explore one factor that underlies all of these problems.

Wyoming.

A conservative state with a frontier mentality. If you live here, you get to enjoy some incredible scenery and outdoor activities. Peace and quiet and low crime rates. In exchange, you will be underpaid and have access to second-rate health care and third-rate amenities in the arts and culture. Mental health care is almost nonexistent. This is a state without a single child psychiatrist and only one drug and alcohol treatment center for teens. The reigning attitude is that you can tough it out, no matter what the “it” is? Drunk? Quit drinking. Depressed? Get over it, boy, and get to work. Suicidal? If you want to shoot yourself, please do it outside.

This is all tied in with the rugged individualism that made Wyoming great. That’s the myth, anyway. Our State Legislature actually spent time during the past session on an official code based on some pretend cowboy past. I blogged about during the session (http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com/2010/02/wyomings-new-code-of-west.html) and last spring http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com/2010/04/uw-panel-discusses-wyomings-new-code-of.html.

The Legislature is representative of Wyoming in that it is overwhelmingly Republican and more conservative that most of the Wyomingites I know. It has many more members from the ranching and agricultural fields than is represented in the population as a whole. The part-time Wyoming House and Senate should be made up of mainly of those from the extractive industries, tourism and government – local, state and federal. A columnist once postulated that if Wyoming had a logo that better represented its population, it would replace the bucking horse with a bureaucrat carrying a briefcase. Just imagine that image on state letterhead.

We hate gubment. We are the gubment. Wyomingites get more back in funding from Uncle Sam then they pay in taxes.

We hate gubment.

Back to our teenagers. We have some fine teens in this town. Smart, energetic, talented. In a few years, they’ll be of to college and exciting careers in places other than Wyoming. Some will had for the military, and still others for the oil patch.

Many others will be left behind. Pregnant at 16, or working fast-food jobs while something better opens up. Others will die while driving drunk.

And we’ll sit back, watch the unfolding chaos, and ponder the wonders of the Cowboy Code.

Writer Lauren Myracle speaks about "Peace, Love & Freedom"

Writer Lauren Myracle spoke about "Peace, Love & Freedom" tonight at LCCC's Bill and Marietta Dineen Writers Series.

Lauren is a best-selling author of books for tween and teen girls. A few years back, when my daughter was somewhere between tween and teen, I bought her a copy of "ttyl." It's a novel told in IM text, a foreign language to some of us Boomers but perfectly comprehensible to 12-year-olds.

Annie said she liked it. That was the last time she said anything positive about anything, as she then was sucked into the vortex of angst-ridden teenhood.

She's still there. But I went to Lauren's presentation and bought her a book, "How to be Bad," co-written by Lauren and two of her teen-writer pals. I liked the book immediately because it had a gator on the cover. A plastic one, but still a gator. Not sure about the plastic reptile's significance. Maybe Annie will fill me in later. She may text me her opinions.

Lauren Myracle has appeared high up on the American Library Association's banned books list. Major target is books in her Internet Girls series, which includes "ttyl," "ttfn" and "l8r g8r." The girl characters in the books talk about teen things. Lauren and her friend Kimberly read an excerpt. Seemed very funny and creative to me. Boys are mentioned a lot. Parties too. A tiny bit of loose language. Nothing even close to the epithets unleashed by the 11-year-old girl character in the new movie, "Kick-Ass." But alarming just the same to some parents.

"People are freaked out by female sexuality," said Lauren.

She read some letters from parents. One father named Chuck used the following words to describe Lauren and her work: "loose morals," "pedophile," crap," "no conscience," and "misguiding youth."

A woman named Leslie from Idaho wrote a letter blasting Lauren, saying she was going to complain to the school library and get the book taken off the shelves. But Lauren says that she always replied -- and tries to "kill them with kindness."

In this case, it worked. Leslie had a sense of humor and by the end of a series of letters, began to come around. She still wasn't going to let her 12-year-old daughter read Lauren's books.

Not sure I would have the patience or kindness to respond to these kind of letters. Kurt Vonnegut used to say that he welcomed book-banning, book-burning and all kinds of censorship because it boosted sales. I'm sure he also got a vicarious thrill out of laughing in the faces of the troglodytes.

Lauren drew a line in the sand over one challenge. Scholastic Book Fairs told Lauren that her book "Luv Ya Bunches" would be accepted if she removed all the references to the "two moms" of one of her characters. Lauren said no -- and her editor backed her up.

She tells stories of parents challenging her books at school and public libraries. Library copies of her books have been found in dumpsters. There have been cases of people stealing all her books from the library and disappearing.

These aren't kids doing this.

The author is a Christian and sings in her church choir. She made a point in saying that there are many types of Christians. In her church, she noted, Jesus wouldn't hate a girl that had two moms.

Lauren Myracle lives in Fort Collins with her kids and husband, poet and high school teacher Jack Martin. Her web site is www.laurenmyracle.com

A "Kangaroo System" documented in "Juvenile Justice in Wyoming"

This trailer is from a documentary by Laramie's Chris Hume.

No clear-cut answers left behind after suicides in WY & WI & CA

My wife Chris and I attended a funeral yesterday for Charles, one of my son's best friends from high school. I will use just his first name, out of respect to his family which I barely know. Charles hanged himself at home. He was 24.

Charles and my son Kevin were both hyperkids -- impulsive kids diagnosed at a young age with ADHD. Often in trouble at school -- when they went. They spent many days skateboarding and riding bikes and playing video games. They also drank and used drugs.

We ferried Kevin to a treatment center in Florida when he was 17. He was there for a year and came home clean and sober and has remained so. He lives in Tucson.

Charles took the rocky road. He was in jail for a time but worked his way out with the help of a transition program. Met a girl. Married. They had a baby girl a few months ago.

Things seemed to be looking up for Charles.

The day before Thanksgiving, Charles hanged himself at home. Yesterday was the very sad funeral. Always is when a young person leaves us in this way.

Last March, James Weigl, an Army veteran of Iraq, hanged himself in his garage in Cedarburg, Wisc. He was 25, not much older than Charles. He's one of 129 soldiers and marines who committed suicide during the first half of 2009.

Meg Kissinger wrote an incredible story for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about Sgt. Weigl's life and death. His parents are outraged at the Army that their son didn't get the mental health care he needed. Some say that Weigl shouldn't have been in the service, that he had two medical conditions that should have made him ineligible. One of those was a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

I'll leave it up to you to read this sad story. Getting to the bottom of events like this is what real newspaper reporters do well. We'll miss them when they're gone. Read the article at http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/70721137.html

Is this weren't enough, NPR this morning featured a pair of stories about teen suicides in California. During the past six months, four Palo Alto teens have killed themslves by jumping in front of trains.

From Palo Alto Online:

Between 20 percent and 23 percent of deaths ruled suicides in Santa Clara County in the past two years were individuals under 30 years old, according to the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner's Office. In both 2007 and 2008, the county had 31 suicides of people under 30. The coroner did not provide city-by-city breakdowns.

Philippe Rey, a psychotherapist and executive director of Adolescent Counseling Service, said Palo Alto's teen suicide rate is in line with national statistics.

That's discouraging. Fifteen suicides a year by young people in a mid-sized city is "in line with national statistics."

Those 129 soldiers and marines who committed suicide in the first six months of 2009 must be "in line with national statistics."

And here are some stats about teen suicides in Wyoming (a bit dated, but still relevant):

Mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spanning the five-year period from 2001-2005 show that suicide rates for Wyoming teens ages 15-19 are more than twice as high as national rates for this same population (WY rate of 17.48 per 100,000 deaths versus U.S. rate of 7.70 per 100,000 deaths). An alarming one in six Wyoming high-school students reported making suicidal plans within the previous year according to the 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, representing a 13 percent increase over 2005 data.

It appears that Wyoming's teen suicide numbers ARE NOT "in line with national statistics."

They're much worse.

All's calm at school after Obama Speech Day

This evening I attended the open house at my daughter Annie's high school, Cheyenne Central. The wily administrators schedule the event as a replica school day. Seven minutes sitting at my kid's desk in World History. Listening to the teacher describe the school year in detail. I take notes, of course, the inveterate scribe. The bells rings and me and my bum knees have five minutes to weave through hordes of neighbors to get to the other side of the building for P.E. Nice gym, or should I say "athletic center." One big b-ball/v-ball center court with practice courts lengthwise at each end. Big bleachers for the fans. Wooden floors that give a little when you run so you don't end up with shin splints after every game.

My high school gym had one court, wood over concrete which made the floor as hard as, well, concrete. There was a stage along one side and cramped bleachers on the other. The end walls were about three feet from the out-of-bounds line, which was one reason we never got through a season without a player smashing into the wall and breaking a crucial bone. Still, our court was better than the one across the county. It was an aging World War II Quonset Hut with support poles that were on the court. The poles were covered with mats, just in case. And it was a technical foul to use a pole for a pick. But many of us tried anyway.

It's not just the facility when it comes to schools. My daughter has several small classes staffed with two teachers. In physical science, there's two teachers and ten kids. Pretty darn good, I say. Sure, I pay my taxes and all that blah blah blah. But you can't pay enough for the dedication I've seen from the teachers and counselors and administrators at Central High School.

Now about that Obama speech today. At the open house, I expected to see phalanxes of bug-eyed students wandering the halls chanting: "Repeat after me -- I'm a socialist community organizer who wants to kill Grandma." But I only saw a few, those whose minds have already melted down from watching too much FOX News.

Annie said she didn't have a chance to see the speech because her algebra classroom doesn't have a TV. I can understand why. Leninist/Stalinist/Hitlerist Obama messages might leak out of the tube and creep into the minds of the students who should be concentrating on equations. Annie said that a couple of the kids had made snide remarks about Obama but there didn't seem to be any major protest or massive walkout or let's-all-yell-at-the-TV-screen event. The school district had made viewing voluntary, saying that teachers could show it during class time or show it later. Students could opt out, spending their time in some worthwhile pursuit, such as study hall or sneaking a smoke out in the parking lot.

I did notice that two of the eight teachers I visited had quotes from Pres. Obama written on their white boards. That's something, I guess, although probably enough to get some Glenn-Beck-watching Know Nothings wildly indignant. But they get wildly indignant about every little thing. Too bad they didn't pay attention in civics class back in the day.

Everything you know about Columbine is wrong

Jesse Kornbluth wrote in HuffPost today about Dave Cullen's new book, "Columbine." To read the column, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-kornbluth/a-disturbing-new-book-abo_b_180613.html

Two weeks ago, during spring break, Chris and I wandered into the Tattered Cover LoDo and discovered that Cullen was in-house that evening talking about his book. We found a few chairs in the back of a very crowded room.

Didn't take long to get very depressed. Everything I thought I knew about Columbine was wrong. Eric Harris was a psychopath, according to the author, and Dylan Klebold was his disturbed follower. Cullen bases his conclusions of a huge cache of documentation, including journals from both killers and interviews with law enforcement and witnesses. He's been researching this topic since it happened on a pleasant spring day in the Denver burbs.

I have not yet read the book, so this isn't a review. But after sitting there in TC listening to Cullen's talk, I sank into my chair, life's fragility weighing me down. How well do we know our kids -- really know them? Sure, Harris's parents could have done a better job keeping an eye on their son. But the kid got good grades and went to the prom just a few days before the massacre. He'd been in some trouble, but weaseled his way out of any major punishment. He was a fine liar. And a leader. That's what's so chilling. The kid next door seemed pretty normal. Never shot up the neighborhood or blew up anything up. Bombs? Guns? Never saw any.

Until April 20, 1999. And then it was too late.

Wyomingites happy, yet vaguely troubled

Wyoming received mixed messages today from national organizations. We all know how distressing mixed messages can be. Makes you want to go out and write a really sad poem.

First, the good news. Wyoming is the third-happiest state, trailing only our brethren and sistren in neighboring Utah, and the sun-drenched residents of Hawaii. This comes from a survey of Americans' well-being, conducted by Gallup in partnership with Healthways and America's Health Insurance Plans.

The bottom three were Mississippi, Kentucky and, at dead last, West Virginia.

The beach-goers and mountaineers of the West obviously are happier than the mountaineers of West Virginia. In fact, the saddest states are in the South. Coincidence? Without all that sorrow, how would they breed such excellent and sorrow-drenched writers as William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor (drenched in sorrow yet darkly humorous)?

According to an AP story:

Jim Harter, a researcher at Gallup, said he was reluctant to explain regional differences without more study, but he suspected that some of the variations are explained by income. For example, when people were asked to examine their status in life now and five years from now, wealthier people tended to score higher.

The survey attempts to measure people's well-being. It examines their eating and exercise habits, work environment and access to basic necessities, just to name some of the criteria.

The massive survey involved more than 350,000 interviews. Examples of the questions include: Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday? Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your job or the work you do? Did you eat healthy all day yesterday? Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where you live? See the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index at http://www.well-beingindex.com

So, Wyomingites are happy. We see amazing joyfulness every day. Although we may be only imagining it.

On Wyoming Public Radio this afternoon, there was a piece about Wyoming’s low mental health grades. The National Alliance on Mental Illness gave Wyoming a grade of "D" in 2006 and an "F" this year. The state lost points for its shortage of psychiatrists or affordable housing for people with mental health issues.

Both of these problems are real. Moreover, there’s not a single practicing child psychiatrist in the entire state. In case you’re too giddy to take in such a woeful statistic, I’ll spell it out in numbers – Wyoming has exactly 0.0 child psychiatrists for its 520,000 people, maybe 200,000 of them under 18. There are psychiatrists trained to treat adults, and there are psychologists and therapists and counselors. Physicians in small- to medium-sized towns in the state see young people with mental health issues and prescribe medication. But they are not trained in child psychiatry.

So we have a problem. Roger McDaniel sees it as a byproduct of Wyoming’s rural nature. He’s probably right. McDaniel oversees mental health for the state Department of Health. He told the WPR reporter: "To the extent that you try to grade Wyoming against more urban states, we're always going to fare poorly."He added that Wyoming has doubled its funding for mental health, and expanded its regional care.

But here in the Great Wide Open, many mentally ill people go untreated. That’s a sad state of affairs.

But I’m too damn happy to notice.

Nebraska and Wyoming share a trait: lack of children's mental health care services

The daily newspaper was invented for this.

On Feb. 1, the Omaha World-Herald published a long article, "Safe Haven kids finally got right help." The article, by staff writers Matthew Hansen and Karyn Spencer, was based on interviews and research into 10,000 pages of documents released to the paper by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. It takes time and patience it took to read that many pages of bureaucratese. It takes skill to translate that into an article that is heart-breaking. Read it at http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10552927, and then read Judith Warner's column in the New York Times that alerted me to the OWH piece. Go to http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/is-there-no-place-on-earth/?emc=eta1

I've written several posts about the weird happenings surrounding Nebraska's "Safe Haven" law. Parents, at their wit's end with kids (mostly teens) who had mental health and behavior problems, abandoned them to Nebraska's authorities. One mother drove her child to Nebraska all the way from Georgia.

Nebraska is Wyoming's neighbor to the east. Both states reflect the fact that there is a severe shortage of mental health care practitioners and facilities in the nation's rural areas. Here's a paragraph from Warner's column:

In 1990, the Council on Graduate Medical Education estimated that by 2000, the United States would need 30,000 child psychiatrists; there are now 7,000. Many rural areas have no child psychiatrists or psychologists at all. Often, pediatricians end up providing mental health care, but they aren’t trained for it and often aren’t reimbursed for it by health insurance. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is currently working with the American Academy of Pediatrics to try to formalize ways to collaborate on caring for children with mental health needs, but models for such joint care are scarce. And doctors have no financial incentives to talk to one another on the phone.

Many rural areas have no child psychiatrists or psychologists at all. Wyoming, with its 97,000 square miles of mostly "rural," doesn't have a single child psychiatrist. Psychologists? Yes, in the state's cities of Cheyenne and Casper, maybe a few others. There are licensed therapists who can provide counseling and possibly point harried parents in the right direction. There are non-profits such as UPLIFT and its outreach specialists who can do the same thing. (Note: I'm an UPLIFT board member). But when you are a parent faced with a mentally ill child, you need lots of guidance and professional help. Your child will likely need medication -- you need an M.D. for that.

Why do I care about this? My daughter just spent 2008 in a residential treatment facility. My wife and I are involved in our communities and know our way around mental health care and twelve-step programs. We have health insurance, but knew it wouldn't come close to covering the costs.

When it comes to long-term care for your own child, we often felt the way this mother described it to the OWH reporters:

Theresa Thomason, an Omaha native who lives in Oklahoma, said she had been struggling to get her adopted foster child into a residential program for his psychiatric problems.

She called an elected official and said she was taking her son to Nebraska unless someone helped her. A barrage of phone calls, e-mails and faxes followed. Her son was admitted within days.

"Why on God's green earth does it take all that to get help?" she asked.

Good question, Theresa.

More about some of the possible answers in future posts.

Abandoned children a mental health issue

We’ve been hearing a lot about Nebraska’s safe haven law. Thirty-four children -- mostly teens -- have been abandoned in the state since mid-September, shortly after the new law went into effect.

Today, I read another piece about the situation in Karen Ball’s sobering Time Magazine story, "The Abandoned Children of Nebraska." There are some parts of the story worth repeating.

....dealing with the underlying causes of abandonment is much harder, child welfare experts say. "These parents had to be totally overwhelmed to do something like this," says Rev. Steven Boes, president of Boys Town — the original safe haven of Father Flanagan fame, which happens to be headquartered in Omaha. Once upon a time, Depression-battered parents would buy bus fare for their children and hand them a sign, "Take Me to Boys Town." Their counterparts today "are parents who have tried to navigate the system for years and this is their last resort; these are parents who ran out of patience too darn fast and gave up too early, and everything in between," says Father Boes.

Boes says one root of the abandonment problem is that there is simply not enough help for parents in crisis. In Nebraska, for instance, there are only six child psychiatrists in the entire state, he says. "It's a national problem... insurance often won't pay after six visits — so if the kid's not fixed, you're out of luck. States have a jumble of services. It's a puzzle with missing pieces."

Only six child psychiatrists in Nebraska? In a state with 445,000 residents under 18 (2006 census), that’s one child psychiatrist per 74,000 kids. That’s a lot of 50-minute appointments.

Wyoming, Nebraska’s squarish neighbor to the West, doesn’t fare much better. At last count, Wyoming had two child psychiatrists. That’s one psychiatrist per 60,770 kids. How many of these youngsters will need mental health care in the course of a year?

The National Alliance on Mental Illness web site cites that fewer than one-third of adults and one-half of children with diagnosable mental disorders get treatment in any given year (stats from HHS Mental Health: Report from the Surgeon General). Suicide is the third leading cause of death of those 10-24 years old (suicide ranks number one among that age group in Wyoming). 90 percent of those who commit suicide have a diagnosable mental disorder. More than 50 percent of kids with a mental disorder at 14 and older drop out of school.
Both of my kids have a diagnosable mental disorder. They used to see a child psychiatrist in Cheyenne, back when we had one. My son moved to Arizona. Not because AZ has more shrinks, but because he went off to college. My daughter has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and relies for assistance on our family physician and a psychiatrist who specializes in adult mental health and a great therapist.

Resources are available, but you have to seek them out. I'll address those in future posts. Meanwhile, those of us in the 177,000 square miles that comprise Wyo-Neb will have to resort to the Depression-era strategy quoted above. Take your child to the airport (very few buses anymore). Pin a sign to the tyke’s shirt that reads: "Take me to a child psychiatrist in Colorado or Kansas – anywhere but here!" Or, you can follow the example of some frantic parents, and abandon your troubled child at any Nebraska hospital.