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Expert Q&A

	By Dana Chidekel, Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist Author

I run a daycare in my home. My 25-month-old daughter is very aggressive with the children. Her older brother has Aspergerų, and Iŭ afraid sheŬl follow in his footsteps. What should I do?

First, you need to go to your pediatrician to rule out any underlying medical problems for your daughterų aggression. I also recommend you pursue some further developmental evaluation of her. You already have Aspergerų disorder in your family, and you have detected a speech delay in your daughter. If your daughter has the same types of developmental spectrum problems that your son has, the time to find out about them is now, though I recognize that this may be a painful pursuit.

Secondarily, irrespective of whether your daughterų difficulty is due to a developmental problem or not, I feel strongly that yours is not the kind of problem that can be solved simply by an advice column. I recommended you seek professional assistance. I also wonder if you have enough support in the daycare that you run? It is challenging to care for young children, even when they do not have these difficulties. Please make sure that you have sufficient assistance for your own well being as well as for that of the children.

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