Parents of Disturbed Children Unite to Seek Understanding : Families: Group members struggle with youngsters’ uncontrollable behavior, which may be caused by medical disorders.

Norm Linder opened the paper, and a chill ran down his spine: “Blame the murderer’s parents,” said the headline atop one letter to the editor.

It was an angry reader’s response to the defense of Mark Scott Thornton, sentenced to die for killing nurse Kellie O’Sullivan. Thornton’s lawyers had argued that he suffered from severe emotional and behavioral problems as a child and was never treated for them.

The letter writer called the argument “hogwash” and said, “If anyone deserves to be blamed, his irresponsible and drug-addicted parents do.”

Linder does not know the specifics of Thornton’s case. He does not know if Thornton’s lawyers were being honest. He does not know if Thornton’s parents had been abusive or negligent.

What Linder does know is that mental and emotional illnesses are real and that a child’s illness is not always the parents’ fault.

His own son, Marcus, was diagnosed with serious behavioral disorders as a 6-year-old, Linder said. Now, at 20, his son is serving a second jail term for robbery.

Linder and his wife, Ellen, have done everything they could for their son, he said. They have raised three other healthy children. But with Marcus, their oldest, they were fighting something beyond their control.

“If my son had cancer or a brain tumor, would you still . . . tell the world that I am irresponsible?” Linder said in response to the letter. “You must understand that mentally ill and emotionally disturbed children are just as sick. They have an invisible disease just as debilitating and potentially just as deadly.”

Linder, marketing director for a Burbank-based computer company, and his wife founded United Parents in 1991 and operate it out of their Moorpark home.

The nonprofit countywide organization, which now has more than 400 members, functions as a support system for parents of children with severe emotional and behavioral disorders. The parents meet in small groups each month, sharing their experiences, trading advice and offering comfort.

“This isn’t about blame, it’s about understanding,” Ellen Linder said. “They come together and see that, ‘Hey, I’m not the only one with a kid like this.’ ”

Anywhere from 8 million to 12 million children nationwide suffer from severe mental, emotional and behavioral problems, according to the National Mental Health Assn. Officials in Ventura County’s Mental Health Services Department estimate that there are about 1,600 children in the county with such disorders.

“These kids are sick, and they need treatment, not punishment,” said Dr. Randy Feltman, director of the department. “One of the problems is that there is a stigma attached to mental illness, and many avoid getting treatment for their children.”

Broadly defined, serious emotional and behavioral disorders include such things as attention deficit disorder, conduct disorder, severe depression, schizophrenia and neurological disorders such as Tourette’s syndrome. The disorders do not include mental retardation, autism or other developmental disabilities such as epilepsy or cerebral palsy.

Sometimes the emotional and behavioral problems stem from abuse, trauma or neglect, but sometimes the cause is much more mysterious.

Linder said many of the children whose families are involved with United Parents have a disorder as a result of genetic factors, chronic medical problems or another unexplained medical reason.

“This is like polio was 50 years ago,” he said. “They’re still trying to understand what causes it.”

The results can sometimes be frightening, he said.

While growing up, Marcus could not control his anger, Linder said. He would go from wanting hugs from his parents to throwing things at them, Linder said.

Marcus was “like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” he said. At 13, the boy chased his 9-year-old sister around the house with a butcher knife, finally pinning her to a chair and threatening to kill her because she borrowed his scooter without asking.

In the group sessions with United Parents, others have described hiding the kitchen knives and locking their bedroom doors at night, afraid their child wanted to kill them.

“At our first meeting, one of the ladies started crying and asked, ‘Do you know what it is like to be scared of your own 10-year-old son?’ ” Ellen Linder said.

One woman described being choked almost to unconsciousness by her son.

The children act out in other ways, as well--obsessively touching other classmates, for instance, or spitting on them. In the case of Tourette’s syndrome, the behavior is sometimes associated with nervous tics, compulsive tapping or repetitive cursing.

Children often get sent home even from special-education classes for fighting or disruptions. And although United Parents plans to get a social-services group and the county’s Mental Health Services Department to provide respite care to give parents a break, the demands of these children can be overwhelming.

Susan, a Camarillo mother of two who did not want her last name used, said behavioral problems caused by her 15-year-old son’s Tourette’s syndrome forced her to quit her job selling real estate.

“I tried to hang on for several years,” she said. “He was always hyperactive, but around 9 or 10 (years old), it really went downhill. The school was calling me every day, asking me to talk to my son or to come and get him.”

The police were called once when her son jumped on his teacher, Susan said.

“People wonder, ‘Why can’t you control your kid?’ ” she said. “Even other family members ask you that, and you start to wonder when your child is 3 years old and has to go on medication: Is it my fault? Did I give him the wrong food? Should I have spanked him more?

“And there’s no sympathy for you,” she said. “No sympathy for a child that misbehaves.”

Sometimes the diagnosis of a disorder can be more problematic, requiring extensive evaluations. A parent might have to navigate an enormous maze of government agencies or private treatment centers.

The cost can further worsen the problem, straining a marriage to the breaking point, the Linders say.

They have a $60,000 lien on their home for a year’s worth of care Marcus received at Camarillo State Hospital.

Other couples have hired attorneys to force local agencies to help their child.

One Camarillo couple involved in United Parents went through a list of nearly a dozen agencies trying to get help for their 16-year-old daughter. The husband, a mental health expert, said the family wishes to remain anonymous.

“We left no stone unturned, and still it was barely enough to get on top of it all,” he said. “I can’t imagine how hard it would have been if we didn’t have the resources we have or if I hadn’t had such a good relationship with my wife.”

Now he and his wife share information with other members of the group, helping families work their way through the mental health system or teaching them about the special-education or the juvenile-justice systems. The group has also helped the couple emotionally.

“We were floundering for a time,” he said. “Now we’re very fortunate to have a circle of friends and emotional support.”

The emotional support the group provides might be its most important function, said Feltman, director of the county’s Mental Health Services Department.

“United Parents is extremely successful,” he said. “The support they give really makes it possible for parents to receive help without feeling like they are bad parents simply because they have a child with serious emotional problems.”