It had been four months since my friend and I had met for lunch, so we quickly ordered our meals and launched into conversation. Moments later we were interrupted by animated voices rising from the booth behind me. I stopped in mid-sentence and listened.

	Ted Crow/Post-Gazette

Two ladies talked about a recent news report that featured a 10-year-old boy diagnosed with a psychiatric condition called oppositional defiant disorder. I had also heard the report and being the single mother of a child with special needs, I eavesdropped with interest.

"It's a bunch of psychological mumbo-jumbo," said the first woman. "You wouldn't see my child disobeying me like that!"

"There's not a thing wrong with that child that a good spanking wouldn't fix," said the other.

They both wondered why "those parents" didn't teach their child proper behavior and enforce it with more discipline.

Their ranting didn't end there. They called the parents everything from lazy to self-centered and accused them of using the disorder to relinquish their parental responsibility.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion. So why was their conversation so disturbing?

It was the attitude.

The two ladies conveyed an attitude of intolerance and a refusal to consider the possibility that the little boy had a legitimate psychiatric disorder. Words delivered with such judgment influence others. Their attitude is typical of those who believe mental illnesses or developmental disorders aren't real or afflict only weak people. That attitude inflicts "stigma" and stigma, which is defined as a "mark of disgrace associated with a disorder," has a big impact.

Their views reduce these disorders to a result of poor parenting. That attitude makes the job of parenting a child with these problems even more of a challenge and demeans the thousands of children heroically struggling to overcome their disorders.

Are most children just being children when they misbehave? Can they be self-centered, strong-willed, just shy or overactive? Of course. Do children learn appropriate and acceptable behavior through parents who set the standards and enforce rules? Absolutely. Are some parents too lenient? Yes. But some children don't fit so neatly into the standard categories.

If you haven't lived with it or haven't been trained to deal with it, you can't imagine the reality of teaching or disciplining a child with a disorder. Traditional discipline doesn't always work. There are children whose neurological dysfunction causes them to process logic and emotions differently. Some can't generalize a lesson learned from past experience ... or they become over-stimulated so easily they melt down without warning ... or their emotions cause an inability to think coherently. They possess biological differences in thinking and learning abilities, which require parents to learn new disciplinary techniques from professionals.

Because parents are often the first to be blamed for poor parenting even when their child has a developmental condition, they face barriers when trying to find help. It took me four years to find someone to accurately diagnose my child. During that time everyone insisted I was at fault and referred me to parenting classes.

Stigma is so pervasive and influential that it's one of the most frequently cited reasons that parents of children, teenagers and adults with mental illness do not seek treatment. It is so prevalent that the National Mental Health Association, the state of Pennsylvania, and the federal government launched campaigns to fight stigma against mental illness.

Mental illness is treatable, but only if the individual seeks that treatment. Yet, only a third of all children with mental health disorders receive any treatment, reports the U.S. Surgeon General. Another study noted that a third of parents with special needs children encountered barriers to receiving services.

We can help to remove stigma by being aware of the subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ways it infiltrates our world. We can gain understanding through knowledge about mental illnesses. We can work to change our perceptions so that we don't unwittingly create barriers for those who need help. We can "adjust our attitude" because attitude does count.

Sandra Lee Busch of McCandless is a free-lance writer who has a 10-year-old son with Asperger's syndrome.