Torey Hayden One Child Summary

One Child by Torey Hayden was the account of a special education teacher’s (Hayden) six-month experience with Sheila, a six-year-old with emotional disturbance. In November of the previous year, Sheila kidnapped a three-year-old boy from her neighborhood, tied him to a tree, and burned him. Due to the nature of her crime, that state committed Sheila to the psychiatric hospital. She joined Hayden’s classroom in January; the state using the classroom as a placeholder for Shelia until a spot opened up at the state psychiatric hospital. When Hayden and Sheila first met, Sheila was smelly, malnourished, and hostile. During her first day in the classroom, Sheila gauged out the eyes of the classroom goldfish and stabbed Hayden in the arm with a pencil.

These events or circumstances can refer to abuse, neglect, a significant death, or just severe familial instability in various forms. Many children return to typical functioning after these events; however, many others show symptoms reminiscent of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These children are predisposed to suffer serious physical and mental health impairments without adequate therapy/restorative measures. Research studies over the past decade have shown that early instability in the home could be used as a predictive measure for the behavioral trajectory of the child. High measures of home instability are incrementally predictive of a child’s likelihood to meet the criteria for a DSM IV diagnosis (Milan, Pinderhughes, & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 2006). These mental and physical issues are mostly all contingently developed based off of environmental factors, making it both intriguing and commonly misunderstood. Children ages eight through fifteen with anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, are the least likely to be treated amongst children receiving mental health treatments (Perou, Bitsko, Blumberg, Pastor, Ghandour, Gfroerer, ... & Parks,