For Parents, Burdens Are Many

Coping with children who have mental, emotional and behavioral disorders is not easy for parents. In addition to facing the stigma of mental illness, they also struggle to meet the overwhelming needs of their children, many of whom are violent and out of control.

And they are burdened with deciphering various medications, maneuvering through the county’s mental-health system and fighting for special-education services. A child’s emotional or behavioral disorders often affect marriages, siblings and jobs.

Ellen and Norm Linder’s son Marcus, now 24, was diagnosed with serious behavioral disorders at age 6. At 14, he was placed in Camarillo State Hospital because Linder and her husband couldn’t control his behaviors, and couldn’t stay awake all night to monitor him. He ran away frequently, committed minor crimes and once chased their daughter with a butcher knife.

But when her son was hospitalized, Linder struggled with feelings of guilt and loss.

“There was an empty place at the dinner table, an empty bed, an empty room and an empty feeling,” she said.

And she felt like she didn’t have anyone to go to for help. That is why she and her husband in 1991 decided to form United Parents, a support group for parents of children with mental-health problems.

“These families just can’t handle the stress and the strain,” Linder said. “There really needs to be support available for them 24 hours a day.”

In addition to weekly meetings, United Parents hopes to raise awareness of mental illness in children and adolescents.

The organization provides parental training and advocacy and has a resource library at its Moorpark office. It also offers a respite care program, Family United Network, to give parents a break from their disturbed children.

The program matches a trained care worker with the family of an emotionally disturbed child and provides at-home supervision 20 hours a month.

Earlier this month, the program received the first “I Care” award from the Ventura County Child Abuse Prevention Council.

“Parents get so stressed out,” Linder said. “So by giving them a break, we are hopefully preventing child abuse.”

Gina, whose 11-year-old son suffers from several mental and emotional disorders, said the respite care she received every Saturday night was a godsend. “I looked forward to Saturday nights like you wouldn’t imagine,” Gina said.

In addition to the other services, trained workers from United Parents are available to come into the home when there is a crisis. The workers conduct immediate family therapy, and work to defuse the situation so the child does not have to be hospitalized.

Rhoda Luick, director of programs for United Parents, said many homes with mentally disturbed children resemble a “war zone,” with holes in the walls, broken furniture, locked phones and medicine cabinets.

“Parents are simply overwhelmed,” she said. “They just don’t know where to begin.”

Luick said because many parents are embarrassed about their children’s erratic behavior, they rarely take them out.

She said she meets children who have only been away from home to visit a hospital or family member’s house. Mentally disturbed children often get kicked out of sports activities, camps and child-care centers because of their behaviors, she said.

To address this situation, United Parents organizes family excursions, including an annual camping trip.

United Parents holds support group meetings from 7 to 9 p.m. the second Monday of each month in Camarillo, and the first Thursday of each month in Ventura. For more information, call 523-8558.