Giving Troubled Young Children a Voice

It is hard to believe that just two years ago I was drowning under a pile of prescription refill requests for ADHD medication in a busy pediatric practice. As those who have been reading my blog since its beginning know, I was disturbed by the over-reliance on psychiatric medication to treat complex problems, problems that I increasingly recognized had their origins very early in life. This approach was in effect silencing these children.

I left that practice to devote my time to prevention, both through clinical work with young children and their parents, and teaching. I wanted to bring the wealth of new research at the interface of developmental psychology, neuroscience and genetics, largely coming out of the discipline known as infant mental health, to my colleagues in pediatrics. This research offers opportunity for meaningful intervention in the early years, when the brain is most rapidly growing.

I had a resurgence of that old feeling of despair on Sunday when I read the New York Times Magazine cover story Can You Call a Nine-Year-Old a Psychopath? It was yet another example of over-simplified labeling.  Problems that represent a complex interplay of genetics and environment are placed squarely in the child, adding the letters CU-for "callous-unemotional"- to a long list of letter combinations used to label children. The article speaks of teaching empathy to children, but the approach is decidedly lacking in empathy for the child.

Children like the one described in that article are a tangle of complexity.  Sensory processing problems, which may be genetic in origin, are often associated with colic, sleep and feeding problems in infancy. Marriages are severely strained. There may be generations of mental illness, sometimes untreated and unrecognized. Parents feel overwhelmed with guilt and torn apart by multiple demands on their time and emotional energy. Treatment involves embracing the messiness of the problem at an early age, even before three, with support for the whole family.

Fortunately I have been given many wonderful opportunities to move this preventive model forward. This work keeps me afloat and hopeful in the face of the type of thinking represented in this article.

Michael Jellinek, president of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, hired me to build a program focused on early childhood social-emotional health. Jellinek was chief of Child Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital for 30 years.  He really understands and values this preventive approach to children's mental health.

Most recently I had the honor of being invited by J. Kevin Nugent, director of the Brazelton Institute, to be on the training faculty for the Newborn Behavioral Observation System (NBO). This clinical intervention grew out of the original research of T. Berry Brazelton demonstrating the wide range of  individual behaviors of newborns. The NBO was designed as a relationship-building tool used to demonstrate a baby's unique capacities, with an aim to promote a positive connection between parents and children. I will  join an amazing group of people who give training sessions to a range of professionals who work with young children and families around the world.

In a previous post, I described a talk given by Robert Anda on the ACES study, a study that offers evidence of  the long-term negative effects of stress in early childhood on physical and mental health, and is currently exerting significant influence on social policy.  Anda spoke of the United States as a giant nursery of 4.3 million babies. He called upon us to think creatively to get those babies, especially those in an environment of risk, going in healthy direction. The NBO offers a way to do just that.

Another exciting event on the horizon is a parenting conference July 20-21 in Stockbridge, MA co-sponsored by the Austen Riggs Center and Yale Child Study Center. I will present alongside master clinicians and leading researchers in the field of child development. The conference "will examine how cutting-edge findings drawn from psychological, neurobiological and genetic studies on parenting clarify and deepen our understanding." My piece will focus on the child's contribution to the development of the parent. If any readers are interested in attending, I suggest making reservations ASAP. The Berkshires are a popular summer destination!!!

In another post I described of a great experience traveling to Seattle to speak with a group of pediatricians about this work, and our need to embrace a new paradigm of care in order to make use of our position in the lives of young children and families.

The icing on the cake is that this weekend I will have the great privilege of speaking alongside Peter Fonagy to the current fellows in the UMass Boston Infant Parent Mental Health Post Graduate Certificate program. I recently graduated from this terrific program, in which I had the opportunity to work closely with leaders in the field and a great group of fellows from a wide range of disciplines.

Fonagy, a world-renowned clinician and researcher, has had an enormous influence on my work.  I learned from him to listen to parents from a stance of non-judgmental curiosity about the meaning of behavior, rather than focusing on "behavior management." His ideas form the basis for my book Keeping Your Child in Mind.

Now rather than feeling like I'm drowning, I often feel like I'm walking on air- exhilarated by the opportunity to work alongside an amazing group of people who share a passion for helping young children and their families in meaningful ways.

Relationships are central to promoting children's healthy emotional development, relationships between caregivers and children as well as between clinicians and caregivers. Perhaps equally important are relationships among colleagues. Two years ago I felt alone and discouraged. Joining in this work with a wonderful group of people, including many that I have not mentioned here, I am hopeful that together our voices will be heard, in turn giving voice to young children and their families.

Postpartum Depression Rx Links Mother's Day and Children's Mental Health Month

On Sunday we celebrate mothers- bringing breakfast in bed, going out to dinner, buying flowers. In my personal experience, one of the greatest pleasures of Mother's Day, in addition to having the "day off," is to take joy in my beautiful children as they grow and develop and make their way out into the world.

D. W. Winnicott, pediatrician turned psychoanalyst, famously said, "There is no such thing as a baby." What he meant  is that one cannot fully understand a baby without considering the relationship with the mother. Equally true is that without a child, there is no such thing as a mother. In order to understand a mother's experience, it important to consider the child and what he or she brings to the relationship.

I have been thinking about this a lot as I participate in the important work of Representative Ellen Story's Postpartum Depression(PPD) commission. Rep. Story originally filed a bill that mandated universal PPD screening in multiple settings (OB and pediatric), but it was amended to a law that calls on the Department of Public Health to issue regulations on best practices for PPD screening. The law also created the Commission, whose  job is to help DPH in its work to come up with a proposal for what the state should do on PPD. 

I think this was a good plan. Universal screening is important. Liz Friedman, program director at MotherWoman, an Amherst based non-profit that was instrumental in he bill's passage, addresses the issue in a recent article.

Friedman continues to believe in the crucial importance of screening all new mothers, rather than screening only those whom doctors suspect might be struggling—a practice that runs the risk of "profiling" women who might seem distressed while overlooking others who are suffering but don't show it as obviously. 

However, without a carefully thought through way to provide treatment for women with PPD, universal screening is meaningless. One excellent model of care, the Community-based Perinatal Support Model, developed by MotherWoman, has been implemented in Franklin county with great success, is currently being implemented in Berkshire and Hampshire counties. It will likely be the basis of the recommendations to the DPH. 

The Community-based Perinatal Support Model (CPSM) has been developed to address the gap between screening and services for mothers. CPSM aims to prevent, identify and facilitate treatment of PMD (perinatal mood disorders) by creating a comprehensive, community-based, multi-disciplinary safety net for women.

Winnicott again is helpful in understanding why such a model would be effective. He coined the phrase 'the holding environment" to describe the way in which a mother, by being present both physically and emotionally with her baby, helps him to manage and contain intense feelings.  Quoting Winnicott: 

It will be observed that though at first we were talking about very simple things, we were also talking about matters that have vital importance, matters that concern the laying down of the foundations for mental health

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The phrase "holding environment" has been used to describe other caregiving relationships, such as a therapist-patient relationship. In the CPS model, a network of people, including nurses, primary care clinicians, mental health professionals, and other parents in the group setting, provides a "holding environment" for mothers who are struggling emotionally in these early months with their baby. 

What makes postpartum depression different from other forms of depression is that it occurs in the setting of responsibility for a new life-with a person who is completely dependent, and brings his or her unique qualities to the relationship.  To fully hold the mother's experience, it is important to recognize the baby's contribution. For example, when a baby is born with difficulties settling to sleep, or  is not naturally cuddly, it will have significant impact on the mother's emotional experience. Sleep deprivation and feelings of inadequacy may compound an existing depression. In turn, the mother's state of mind, particularly if she is preoccupied with her own distress, may impair her ability to help the baby to contain and manage his experience. A recent study showing that mother's struggling with anxiety and depression often wake their babies at night offers an example of how a mother's emotional state may affect her child's development. 

How fitting that Mother's Day occurs in the middle of Children's Mental Health Awareness Month. The work of Representative Story and the PPD commission is a tribute to both.  When we as a society attend to the emotional needs of new mothers, we help them to emerge from pain and suffering to take joy in their children.  This not only promotes their children's healthy development, but it makes for a really great Mother's Day!!

Stressed Doctors, Parents, and Children

This past weekend I had the privilege to present the ideas I have been describing in my blog and book to an audience of general pediatricians at the North Pacific Pediatric Society.  It was a wonderful, highly receptive audience. The essence of the problem, in my opinion, is that this cascade of stress impairs effective listening.  We have a basic human need to be heard and understood. This holds true for clinicians, parents and children.

 The American Academy of Pediatrics, in a recent policy statement, has charged pediatricians, along with a very long list of things to do in a 15-minute visit, with preventing "toxic stress" or stress in the absence of a secure, safe caregiving relationship. Extensive research has shown that these kind of relationships can protect against many negative health outcomes. We are ideally suited for this task, as primary care clinicians as a profession have by far the largest interface with young children and families, and usually have a relationship of implicit trust.

Time to listen to parents and an opportunity to share their own experiences with other clinicians are two essential components needed to enable primary care clinicians to take on this critical task of promoting healthy relationships. Currently a pediatrician is paid more for a 10-minute visit for an ear infection (that may very well get better on its own) than a 50-minute visit for an emotional or behavioral concern. On the policy level, changing this would be a good place to start.

As is usually the case after giving such a talk, I think of points that I would have liked to address but did not. Fortunately I have this blog, so can add them here.

 1) I spoke about the need to reframe a child's "difficult" behavior as "stressed" behavior. Over the course of the weekend, a number of references were made to the "difficult" parent. Equally important is to reframe this notion of the "difficult" parent" as the "stressed" parent. We cannot help the child if we do not have an empathic stance toward the caregiver.

 2) I talked about the significance of D.W. Winnicott's contributions, but neglected to mention his very important notion of the "good-enough mother."  The essence of this idea is that mistakes we make as parents, moments when we miss our children's cues, lose our cool or any number of things that inevitable go wrong in the daily life of families, if these "mistakes," or disruptions, are recognized and addressed, are not only OK but essential to move development forward in a healthy direction.

 3) A general pediatrician questioned why I, as a specialist in infant mental health, would ever be referred a patient with colic, a problem that is so common and so much considered the job of the primary care clinician. The point I wanted to make is that meaningful evaluation of this issue may involve more than a 15-minute visit. Colic is traditionally viewed as residing in the baby. But when we see it as a relationship problem, it makes sense to give it more time. For a new mother who imagined blissful hours of with her newborn, having a baby who is either crying or sleeping with little time available for gazing lovingly into each other's eyes, colic can be devastating. At the very least there is severe sleep deprivation, and there may be feelings of low self-esteem and even depresssion. Bringing these issues out in the open at the beginning, validating the mother's experience and helping her to find support, may prevent more long-term problems.

 The last talk of the weekend was about mindfulness. The speaker was a specialist in adolescence, and she was advocating for mindfulness both for parents of teenagers and for the clinicians in the audience. She offered Jon Kabat-Zinn's definition:

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; On purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.

This is one tool that can help us to slow down just enough to be able to carefully listen to each other. In doing so, we will go a long way in stopping this cascade of stress that has potential to wreak havoc on our society in the long run.

Engaging Our Right Brains to Support Parents and Children

"People have to feel something in order to change the way they think and behave." This is a quote from my book Keeping Your Child in Mind. The right brain is the seat of emotional regulation. Most, if not all, emotional and behavioral problems are intrinsically tied to the ability to regulate emotions. Changes in the brain can occur only if the right brain centers that regulate emotion are actually firing.

I was thinking about this idea when I attended an amazing conference at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, New Insights on Early Life Stress and Mental Health. Leaders from a range of disciplines presented the explosion of scientific evidence showing that early caregiving relationships have a significant long term impact on both mental and physical health.

MIT is a particularly left brain place, and there was a lot of hard core science at this talk. One speaker, Robert Anda, did inject a bit of right brain experience. Anda is one of the main authors of the ACES study, a powerful longitudinal research project that shows the cumulative effect of adverse childhood experiences, including parental mental illness, divorce, neglect and abuse, on many outcomes related to physical and emotional health. He used art to make our right brains fire. In a painting he showed, a little boy of about seven sat at the dinner table as his parents engaged in an argument, his father holding a knife and his mother's face distorted by rage. The terror on the boy's face was palpable.

The conference was very much framed around the concept of adversity. Anda kept apologizing for making us depressed. Consider the conference description:

Within the last two decades, scientists have begun to examine the biological repercussions of early childhood stress, and have uncovered clues as to how these early life experiences cause lasting changes in DNA and the brain that predispose individuals to disabling behavioral and psychiatric disorders in adolescence and adulthood.

The whole day I found myself thinking that what was missing was a right brain experience of what it feels like when things go well. We know it is bad for kids when they do not have a secure safe relationship. But what does it feel like when parents and children do connect in a way that makes a child feel safe and secure? Earlier in the day I had had the opportunity to share just such a right brain experience.

I had given Pediatric Grand Rounds at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, where I was introducing the scientific basis of my new Social Emotional Health program, where I see families of children under age six. When families come to see me, parents and children feel sad, angry, and out-of-control. By carefully listening to parents' own experience I help them to reflect on the meaning of their child's behavior, rather than responding to the behavior itself. This approach is founded in decades of longitudinal research at the intersection of developmental psychology, neuroscience and genetics that I describe in my book.

I told my audience the story of a visit with a mother who experienced her 3-year-old son's behavior as an assault. I had reframed the child's behavior in these out-of-control moments as helpless rather than defiant. She said, "I know what you mean." She described one moment when, rather than getting angry, she had held her son firmly on her lap and said gently "What's wrong?" She told me how her son "melted in my arms" and replied softly, "I don't know."

This mother felt this change not only in her brain, but in her body. It is not uncommon for parents to have themselves experienced trauma in early relationships. They react to their child's provocative behavior on a physical level that is related to their own history, not to the child. By carefully listening to parents, in a visit that is not fifteen minutes but an hour, I help them to make these connections. Once their own issues are in a sense moved out of the way, they are free to reflect on their child's experience in a way that is not encumbered by their own trauma history. When a child feels understood in this way, his behavior improves. A positive cycle of interaction is set in place.

When I told this story during Grand Rounds, I felt a tingling in my arms as I spoke of this mother's transformation in my office. The visit with that family had been a powerful experience for me. The fact that I felt something in the telling makes me hopeful that I was able to convey this to my audience. Maybe they understood how this kind of careful listening may actually change brains.

My book is full of stories like this one. If we are going to change this path that was described at MIT, of early childhood stress leading to terrible outcomes, these conferences need to include stories of what goes right; when clinician-parent-child connect in a meaningful way. Once we know what this feels like, we will be closer to understanding what we need to do to set children and families on a better path.

Psychiatric Medication For Children? Important New Book Gives Pause

Two things most stood out for me in Kaitlin Bell Barnett's new book Dosed: The Medication Generation Grows Up. The first is the stories of women struggling to get off of SSRI's (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors), started in early adolescence, when they decide to get pregnant. The second is Bell Barnett's review of the literature regarding sexual dysfunction as a side effect of SSRIs in adolescence.

The book as a whole has much to say that is very important. As I write in my blurb for the cover:

Dosed is a fascinating, well-researched, and very important book. After reading it, I hope that no parent, pediatrician or psychiatrist will give psychiatric medication to a child or adolescent without very careful consideration of the potential long-term consequences. Bell Barnett shows that these medications are often not a ‘quick fix,’ but rather have deep, lasting impact, not only on physical and emotional health, but also on a person’s core sense of self.

Bell Barnett is a journalist who was herself started on SSRIs as a teenager. Her book intertwines in depth interviews with people who were started on psychiatric medication in childhood and are now young adults, with a journalistic study of the history of psychiatric medication use in children. I could probably write several posts covering all the important issues she addresses, but have chosen to focus on these two.

I first learned of the emerging evidence that SSRIs may cause long term sexual dysfunction last fall when I attended a talk by Robert Whitaker, author of the controversial book about psychiatric illness and medication Anatomy of an Epidemic. I was so alarmed about this data that I wanted to immediately write a blog post about it. But shortly after that talk I received the galleys of Bell Barnett's book. I discovered that she has a through review of the rather scant literature on the subject along with some very poignant stories, so I decided to wait until her book came out. I recommend that anyone who is concerned about this issue (as anyone who takes or prescribes these drugs should be) read her book. The subject is covered in the chapter entitled "Side Effects." Here are a few sample quotes.

A comprehensive review of the literature conducted in 2004 found just one clinical trial that reported erectile dysfunction in a teenager; most clinical guidelines and reviews of SSRIs didn't mention sexual side effects at all.

This is pretty shocking since, as the authors of the study cited above noted, anywhere from 30-40 percent of adults experience some kind of SSRI induced problems with libido, arousal, or orgasm.

And this important point:

Despite the lack of formal studies involving young people, anecdotal evidence suggests that drugs causing decreased libido and sexual dysfunction do sometimes pose a real problem, psychologically and socially, both for teenagers who are in the process of developing a sexual identity and for young adults testing out long-term intimate relationships.

And this from Elizabeth, who started taking SSRIs in 9th grade:

I am not sure I can [over]state the extent to which it impacted things. I didn't grow up with a normal sex drive, and that was obviously due to a combination of factors, but being on and off antidepressants whose impact I really couldn't understand back when I didn't have any real understanding of my sex drive or sex in relationships to begin with means I basically went through adolescence without experiencing anything in that realm in a "normal' way.

There's more, but the bottom line is that this issue is not well studied and yet of major significance in adolescent development.

Bell-Barnett poignantly captures the challenges faced by her interviewees who were started on SSRIs in childhood and now want to have children. Aware of the potential effects on the developing fetus, they try to get off the medication, but rebound with debilitating symptoms of depression. SSRIs are one of the most common medications prescribed in pregnancy. Yet we really do not know what the effects are on the developing fetus. A policy statement put out by the American Academy of Pediatrics earlier this year points to evidence that SSRI use in the third trimester is linked to a constellation of neonatal signs and symptoms. We do know that maternal depression itself can have a negative impact on the developing fetus. So if a woman is already on SSRIs and develops symptoms of depression without them, it may be best to stay on them during pregnancy.

The take home point of Bell Barnett's book, however, is that this issue needs to be considered by parents and clinicians when girls are prescribed these medications in childhood and adolescence well before having children is on their minds. These medications have a great allure as they may very quickly resolve symptoms. But one thing that Bell Barnett makes clear, and that is also supported by the literature, is that getting off these medications is very difficult.

Certainly these children and teenager should get help if they are struggling with depression. But other forms of intervention, including psychodynamic psychotherapy combined with self-regulating activities such as yoga, offer an alternative to medication. There is a severe shortage of quality mental health services due in part to the influence of the health insurance industry. It is a complex issue that must be addressed at the level of health care policy.

Large-scale use of these medications has major life-long impact on identity and sense of self of the current generation, referred to as "Generation Rx." Considering the complex issue of SSRIs in pregnancy, there is also potential for significant impact on the next generation. The time to pay attention to this problem is now. Reading Bell Barnett's book is a good place to start.

Relationships: The Fourth Vital Sign

Respiratory rate, heart rate, blood pressure- these are the three vital signs that those on the front lines of health care are well trained to measure as initial assessment of a patient. Given the explosion of knowledge emerging at the intersection of neuroscience, genetics and developmental psychology about the essential role of early caregiver-child relationships on lifelong health, it is time to add a fourth vital sign- relationships. I first learned of this idea from a colleague, David Willis who is Chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Early Brain and Child Development Initiative. He in turn learned it from Colleen Kraft. Adding this fourth vital sign puts assessment and support of early relationships front and center.

The AAP policy statement Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Role of the Pediatrician: Translating Developmental Science Into Lifelong Health captures the critical role of relationships in healthy development.

In contrast to positive or tolerable stress, toxic stress is defined as the excessive or prolonged activation of the physiologic stress response systems in the absence of the buffering protection afforded by stable, responsive relationships..toxic stress early in life plays a critical role by disrupting brain circuitry and other important regulatory systems in ways that continue to influence physiology, behavior, and health decades later.

A remarkable study coming out of the Yale Child Study Center and described in the New York Times  shows the wisdom of this focus on relationships. It was a randomized control study of the Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention(CFTSI). Children who received the intervention were 65 percent less likely than those in the comparison group to have developed full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder and 73 percent less likely to experience partial post-traumatic stress disorder. These are the kind of numbers that make one stand up and take notice.

What makes this intervention different is that it specifically works with caregiver and child together to support the caregiver's efforts to understand the meaning of the child's behavior.

Unlike traditional counseling, which is often unstructured and prolonged and may not involve both child and caregiver, this program follows a proven pattern: first a session with the caregiver, then one with the child, then two sessions with them together.

Steve Marans, lead author on the study, explains the results.

When children are alone with and don’t have words to describe their traumatic reactions, symptoms and symptomatic behaviors are their only means of expression. And caregivers are often unable to understand the connection between the traumatic event and their children’s symptoms and behaviors. To heal, children need recognition and understanding from their caregivers.

These remarkable results make perfect sense to me. Children want to be understood by their parents, not their therapist. This is the model I have been using for years in my pediatric practice to address any behavioral symptom, not only those associated with trauma, and I too have had remarkable results. It is wonderful to see this approach validated by a high quality randomized control study. As I write in my book Keeping Your Child in Mind

Being understood by a person we love is one of our most powerful yearnings, for adults and children alike. The need for understanding is part of what makes us human. When our feelings are validated, we know that we’re not alone. For a young child, this understanding helps develop his mind and sense of himself. When the people who care for him can reflect back his experience, he learns to recognize and manage his emotions, think more clearly, and adapt to his complex social world

This concept of supporting parent's efforts to reflect on the meaning of a child's behavior comes out of decades of research showing how this kind of understanding promotes health development at the level of gene expression and biochemistry of the brain.

When baby is born, if heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure are OK, our next priority is to support the primary relationships by carefully listening to both caregiver and baby. One way to accomplish this is to use a wonderful tool the Newborn Behavioral Observation system, developed by J.Kevin Nugent, colleague of T. Berry Brazelton. If problems are identified, such as a biologically vulnerable child whose cues are hard to read, or postpartum depression, or lack of social support for mother, we can address them. We will then be setting this new life out on a course of healthy development from the start.

Animal Therapy for Children (and Parents)

Recently there was a beautiful article, Wonder Dog , in the New York Times magazine about an emotionally troubled boy who was helped significantly by a devoted dog. I thought about this story this past week when my beloved dog, a lab-border collie mix who we adopted 9 years ago at the age of two , died rather suddenly. It turns out he had a tumor on his spleen and bled internally-at least it was quick and painless.

The thing is- he really helped me out with my emotional regulation, especially in my role as mother to my daughter, who as a young teenager had an incredible capacity to push my buttons. In the interests of full disclosure, I also had a lot of help from a wonderful therapist in understanding the roots of this issue. But Jasper was there with us on the front lines.

Whenever we would get into any kind of conflict and I would start to raise my voice, Jasper would immediately get up from his dog bed and come and lie right next to me. At once I would feel calm. My breathing slowed and I am quite sure my blood pressure went down. Rather than continue to butt heads with her, I would be able to think more clearly about what was happening and to reflect on the meaning of her behavior. Often I could identify some event in her life that was causing her stress and anxiety that she was now taking out on me. I was able to remain calm in the face of assault. Jasper helped me to much more rapidly defuse these encounters.

Now that he is gone, I think of his beautiful soulful eyes and his oh-so soft head, and I hope that I have internalized his presence enough that I can just think of him to gain that calm feeling. My daughter is older now and she herself has learned to regulate her own emotions. Part of this is simply development and maturation. But to some degree I believe she has learned this from me, and I in turn learned it in part from Jasper.

In my book, Keeping Your Child in Mind, I talk about how parents themselves need to find ways to manage their own emotions in order to be present with their children in a way that promotes healthy development. This involves having someone to hold them in mind, be it a spouse, friend, family member or therapist. I should add animals to that list.

The therapeutic value of animals for children is well known. I often recommend horseback riding as an activity for children with problems of emotional regulation. Child psychiatrist Bruce Perry, in his description of the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics that he developed for working with traumatized children, writes:

Dogs have the capacity to provide the unconditional accepting and repetitive nurturing experiences required to help some of these children.

The wonderful documentary film Buck, clearly demonstrates how Buck's close relationship with horses has helped him to recover from the severe physical and emotional abuse he experienced as a child. He now uses this experience to help others. In training workshops he runs all over the country he shows the importance of managing your own emotions in order to be present with your horse in a way that helps him to manage his. It's an amazingly similar concept to my book!

If your child wants a dog, and you worry that you will "get stuck" taking care of it, remember that the dog can be a wonderful asset for the whole family. I know it will take our family a long time to heal from this terrible loss. I would often say to Jasper, "You are truly a good person ( as dog)." I hope that in writing this I can to some degree immortalize his gifts to us.