So anyways I ended up having the Health and Community Social Services at my Door…And I'm saying, "like what's this for?" Now I'm stuck with the Public Health coming into my house once a week to do observations on [the baby] and they try to help me to correspond with [my older son] cause they know that just dealing with him alone is 20 times more stressful than it is just taking care of the baby.

Jill states that she is tired of trying to sort things out with her older son and really doesn't know what more she can do. She shows signs of frustration in dealing with him, "I'll tell him something…and five minutes after, he's back to doing it again…I keep telling him the dangers of what he does and he just doesn't seem to want to realize…that there is dangers involved. Like, and I'm at my wits end with him."

At the time of the study, Jill's son, as well as Julie's son and eldest daughter, and Jane's eldest son were all being treated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Jane's son has an additional diagnosis of Tourettes Syndrome and she also describes him as suffering from "a lack of memory [and damage affecting] the left side of his brain." In describing his conditions, she readily rolled off her tongue the names of the three drugs he was prescribed, one of which he has been taking since he was four years old. Jane adds that her son has been a "handful" and monitoring her son's drug regime requires vigilance because there have been a few incidents, "We had to take him off because there's too much, si-side effects for him. He was uh - really off the wall and out of control at school so we had to take him off his anti-depressants. He was taking outraged burst fits…tantrums." She states that her son has regular appointments at the Mental Health Clinic after being referred by the social worker. His treatment also includes courses in anger management and violence prevention.

Andrea, Natalie and Michelle all have children with learning disabilities. These children are receiving a variety of support services each week at school, such as speech therapy and occupational therapy from support staff that travel to the school. Additionally, the children each have individualized special education plans and receive remedial programming from Tess, the Methods and Resource teacher at school.