Fearless Parent Radio – CPS and Medical Marijuana – 12.02.15

Guests //Indra Lusero, Esq and Heather Thompson, PhD

Host // Valerie Borek, Esq

Across the country, states are legalizing marijuana use. Parents are discovering that medical marijuana can offer life-changing relief for their chronically ill children. But when child protective laws are not simultaneously updated, families can be caught in the middle.

Join co-host Valerie Borek, Esq as she interviews two activists in the trenches. They explore this disconnect, with a lively and important discussion on personal, medical, legal, and privacy rights, and how to protect our families:

How legal marijuana use can have negative consequences on families.
The importance of informed consent in maternity care.
The problems with the dissociation between criminal and child protective laws with respect to legal marijuana.
Understanding your options if you or your newborn tests positive for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) when you are pregnant, a parent, or breast feeding.
Understanding what we know, what we think we know, and what we believe about marijuana use in pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Fearless Parent Radio – SPD: Processing a New Future for Kids – 11.18.15

About 5% of children have difficulty receiving “normal” sensory inputs from the environment — sound, light, smell, clothing, food, movement — and respond in ways that are deemed inappropriate, like crying, screaming, covering their ears, or tuning out.

Maybe they’re challenged in school or social situations; at the restaurant, mall, or airport; even with clothing tags or automatic flush toilets in public restrooms, to name just a few. Not all children are hypersensitive over-responders, however. Some might be under-responders who might be quiet, with a flat affect and low arousalresponse.

These children might have a kind of “neurological traffic jam” going on. If the adults in a child’s life don’t understand what’s happening, the child can be labeled and medicated in a variety of heartbreaking ways. The next time you hear that a child that is difficult, clumsy, picky, anxious, oppositional, quirky, etc., it might be worth looking into something called Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD).

What is SPD? Is it sometimes misdiagnosed as ADHD?
How does SPD differ from Sensory integration dysfunction?
What do parents wish that the medical community better understood about SPD?
Is there a connection between colic/gastrointestinal symptoms and SPD?
What kind of treatments are helping children today and what’s on the horizon?
How are parents leading the way?