Quirky Kids: Understanding and Helping Your Child Who Doesnt Fit

From the fourth-grade girl who never gets invited to a birthday party because classmates think she’s “weird” to the geek who is terrific at math but is failing every other subject, quirky children are different from other kids in ways that they–and their parents–have a hard time understanding. They present a host of challenges that standard parenting books fail to address. Now, in Quirky Kids, seasoned pediatricians Perri Klass and Eileen Costello provide the expert guidance that families with quirky children so desperately need.

Klass and Costello illuminate the confusing list of terms often applied to quirky children–from Asperger’s syndrome and nonverbal learning disability to obsessive-compulsive behavior and sensory integration dysfunction. The authors also discuss various therapy options, coping strategies, and available medications. Most of all, they will help quirky kids lead rich, fulfilling lives at home, at school, even on the playground.

Perri Klass, M.D., and Eileen Costello, M.D., are pediatricians on the staff of Boston University School of Medicine. Both Harvard graduates who trained in pediatrics at Boston Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital, they have practiced pediatrics together at Dorchester House, a community health center in Boston, for ten years. Klass writes frequently for The New York Times, and is a contributing editor at Parenting. She has written both fiction and nonfiction, including the novel Other Women’s Children and the memoir Baby Doctor: A Pediatrician’s Training. Each is the mother of three children, and they both make their homes in the Boston area.