Families that have children with psychological challenges are often helped by the use of a support group. The adults find other parents who can relate to the issues they deal with, the non affected children can find friends who understand the challenges of dealing with an affected sibling and the affected child can discover that he or she is not alone in the psychological challenge world and make friends with others who have problems even if they are different issues all together. In this case studies two families are linked because they each have a child with psychological challenges and they each have children who do not have psychological issues. The families met in a support group and the case study illustrates how belonging to a support group can benefit everyone involved.
             The first family of this case study is a family of five with the affected child living part time with this family and part time with his mother across town.
             The family consists of a mother, a father, two boys and a girl. The girl is 7 years old and is an honor student at her local public elementary school. The younger boy is six years old and he is reported to be a "delight" in class and at home however, the parents do report that they experience some acting out behaviors with him on the weekends the older boy comes to stay.
             The older boy is nine years old and has been diagnosed with autism for seven years.
             The parents report that they are close to the boy's mother, and that the entire family works together with regard to David's autism. David is in a public school setting where he is provided an IEP and is mainstreamed for several of his classes each day while remaining in the resource room for others(Huefner, 1997).
             David's father, Jon is 42 years old and has a Masters degree in engineering. He works full time for IBM and enjoys what he does for a living. He reported that his marriage broke up when David was two and th...