The Elephant in the Playroom: Ordinary Parents Write Intimately and Honestly About Raising Kids with Special Needs

A view from within the whirlwind of parenting a child with special needs 

Four years ago, Denise Brodey’s young son was diagnosed with a combination of special needs. As she struggled to make sense of her new, chaotic world, what she found comforted her most was talking with other parents of kids with special needs, learning how they coped with the emotional, medical, and social challenges they faced. 

In The Elephant in the Playroom, Brodey introduces us to a community of intrepid moms and dads who eloquently share the extraordinary highs and heartbreaking lows of parenting a child with ADD/ADHD, sensory disorders, childhood depression, autism, and physical and learning disabilities, as well as kids who fall between diagnoses. Hailing from Florida to Alaska, with kids ages three to thirty-three, the parents in this collection address everything from deciding to medicate a child to how they’ve learned to take care of themselves, offering readers comfort, kinship, and much- needed perspective.

Denise Brodey is a writer with a specialty in women's wellness and parenting. Brodey is also an award-winning journalist who has written and edited for The New York Times, USA TODAY, Glamour, Fitness, SELF, O: The Oprah Magazine, People, and Prevention. The Elephant in the Playroom (Penguin), was published in 2007, and is widely known as one of the first books to reveal life within the whirlwind of parenting a quirky child.