One indicator to know whether to gently ask a benign question as an opening versus saying nothing at all is how often your friend has her child around other kids.
If she and her DC are at frequent gatherings, the playground, playdates, school classes, etc., she's going to notice the difference between her child and others. There would be little need to bring it up, and she has chosen to keep her thoughts and any addressing of issues to herself. If on the other hand she is around few other children and basically only interacts with your child and hers, she may not be aware and you could try just gently leading into how her child is doing. If she doesn't respond with a conversation leading into sharing, follow her signal and leave it alone. |
No, it’s been frustrating all these years biting my tongue and now my heart is breaking for the whole family. |
What county are you in? Early Intervention (at least in Fairfax County) is NOT free unless you are low-income or they can work on a sliding scale depending on your income. We are working with EI now in Fairfax County and they are charging our insurance (we pay the co-pay, $55). The assessments and coordination is free, but not the therapy. |
Wtf? "Sounding board for your suggestions and ideas"? How do you extrapolate that conclusion from what was written? The idea is for friends to be able to offer suggestions and ideas that would be helpful to the other friend. I've never had a close friend who didn't offer input and try to help navigate life's rough spots. You're missing out and one of the best parts of friendship. |
You are assuming your suggestions (I’m assuming you aren’t a developmental pediatrician or something of the like) are helpful. Tons of posters have indicated that that likely is not the case. |
I have a co-worker with kids the same age as mine. The kids have hung out at events together. We have talked about the kids and how very, very similar the kids are. This mom, jokingly mentioned how we could just switch kids and probably not notice that much. DS has an ADHD-inattentive diagnosis that this mom knows that we've been dealing with since DS was 6 or so. I've gently re-iterated several times how similar the boys are, the similar struggles in school, and behavior. I pretty much gave up trying to get her to see that her son needed to be tested when the school chose to hold her son back and she cried fowl and that she had no idea that he was going that bad. I asked about it and she just kept pointing the finger at the school, when her son had clearly been struggling. Now that her son has repeated a grade and has made the honor roll many times, she thinks he's ready to skip ahead. The kid still has the same struggles. The only real positive outcome is that she did concede that her son has to be handled a certain way to avoid complete meltdowns. |
But most people are not child development researchers (or the like). If I had a FRIEND who worked in this field and she mentioned a concern to me, I would be very thankful and RUN, not walk, to the pediatrician to get the ball rolling. But regular, run of the mill friends? Thanks, but no thanks. That includes relatives, friends, teachers (disclaimer, a teacher can and should tell parents about “concerns,” but please don’t offer diagnoses). |
I have a similar friend and it wasn’t until her DS flunked 7th grade English, Math, etc for not handing in assignments that she acknowledged that there maybe a problem. He was finally taken for an evaluation and diagnosed with ASD and ADHD. My friend has a (science) PhD and has always acknowledged that her father is likely on the spectrum (he is an engineer) so I was surprised it took flunking 7th grade to acknowledge there are issues. |