Having a child that was labeled by school administration, I feel somewhat personally connected to ET. My daughter was misdiagnosed with ADHD when she was in kindergarten. By 4th grade she was having serious problems acting out at school because of the medications for ADHD she had been on for so long and that she never should have been taking. She was extremely petite and weighed only about 50 pounds at the time, but was on the strongest dose of every ADHD medication on the market (not all at once and not Ritalin - but every single other drug for ADHD).
Despite these efforts she was increasingly combative at school and at home - certainly not the age for teenage defiance when she was only at only 8 or 9 years old. Instead of getting help from her school's administration and counselor she and I both constantly got blamed for her behavior. I even had a vice principal from her elementary school call me and counsel me on how I to need to put my child in medication if she has ADHD. I counseled him on how it is a violation of state law for him to even hint at that suggestion and then reported him to the school principal the very next day. Her response, "Well, I know he's a problem, but he's retiring at the end of the school year". I minored in psychology in college and even studied child psychology, but my repeated request asking that my daughter's psychiatrist and therapist do additional testing fell on deaf ears.
By the time she was in 8th grade I grew disgusted that no one would listen to what I had to say (I personally believe they, the psychiatrist and therapist, believed what I had to say about additional testing but didn't want to lose the money they had coming in from twice a week therapy sessions and once a week psychiatrist sessions), so I eventually took it upon myself to ween her off of the cocktail of drugs they had her on (about 4 drugs that included ADHD meds, anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers, and ability - just for starters). In a matter of a month her behavior improved substantially. By the end of that semester her behavior problems at school completely stopped. The next year her grades improved from nearly flunking out of school to being an A, B, and occasional C student.
The point of the story is she and I (especially her) were in desperately need of help. We went though a list of doctors so long it's hard to recall exactly how many there were (my best recollection was 6). We even begged for help with the school counselor, but they deemed it all my daughter's problem. My point is, in my experience the school administration could care less about helping a child in need. They want the kids that act right and therefore make the lives of the teachers and administrators easier and the kids that don't fit this mold get labeled, sometimes permanently, and are never given the attention they need to figure out what the real underlying problem is to give them the opportunity to succeed in life.
My daughter got extremely lucky with the middle school counselor she had. This woman had done specialized studies and research into adolescents and teens with ADHD and knew from the first session with my daughter that she didn't have ADHD. She said that the medications my daughter had been prescribed were entirely too strong for my child, who was extremely small for her age and only weighed about 70 pounds at the time causing the behaviors of ADHD, a classic sign of someone who doesn't have ADHD (if you have ADHD the drugs calm the hyperactivity, if you don't have it the drugs cause behaviors that are similar to ADHD).
Even though the specifics are different, I get the impression there are similarities to what happened with ET and is now what is happening to her siblings. The school knew there were problems with ET's home life, but instead of giving her the help and support she truly needed they instead labeled her as a problem. And then TC came into the picture and took advantage of a young girl with a bad home life and family problems. He took advantage of a kid in need who no one else would listen to or lend support to and she was so grateful for someone in a position of power (in her eyes) to listen to her story and treat her with respect that she probably didn't even notice or care when things started to move in the wrong direction.
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