Don't worry, 'hostages.' We're here to help!

There's a lot of buzz over the new awareness campaign from the NYU Child Study Center, which features ransom notes to parents from conditions ranging from OCD to autism that are "holding children hostage." It's an edgy idea to encourage parents to seek help, but the edge is too sharp. The ads spew labels and worst-case scenarios at readers, and those readers won't just be adults.

The ransom notes will go on billboards and kiosks all over New York, plus "newspapers, magazines and on-line through the first quarter 2008 and then move into five major markets." Kids, of course, will see the ads. Some of those kids, of course, will have the conditions mentioned.

I can't speak for all adolescents with recurrent major depression, seeing as how I'm no longer an adolescent. But seeing a bus-stop poster full of this would have brought me even lower than I frequently was. (Click to enlarge the images below.)

That "no hope of ever getting out" is a nice touch, isn't it? That really would have boosted my will to live.

Now think for a minute about some bright young autistic person you know--your child, perhaps, or a friend's child, your brother or sister. Imagine that child reading this:

Sometimes, the only words are profanities so foul that even I won't post them. You'd think that a center devoted to the study of children would have considered the potential impact of these ads on kids with depression, autism, ADHD, and so on. Instead, they're rolling out the Mount Carmel of mental-health hostage-release efforts.

When I first saw these ads, I thought of my brother's brain cancer when he was 13. This was back when Make-A-Wish granted wishes to "terminally ill" children. You might think kids don't pick up on those things, but when the Make-A-Wish rep dropped by my brother's hospital room after his surgery, it was like a visit from the Reaper. My little brother was horrified and upset. No one had said anything to him about being terminally ill, and the Make-A-Wish person certainly didn't say such a thing, but because of the way ads were worded my brother knew the implication of the visit.*

But enough about demoralization. What about stigma? Child Study Center director Harold Koplewicz laments in the ad campaign's press release that "childhood mental illness remains stigmatized." How is copy including "It's only going to get worse," and "detriment to himself and those around him" going help? The reason mental illness (and autism isn't a mental illness, as far as I know) is stigmatized is that people assume it will only get worse and that the mentally ill are a detriment to themselves and others.

It seems a lack of consideration for children is holding this campaign's creators hostage, which is why I'm delivering my message to the Child Study Center and ad agency BBDO as a ransom note:

The Autism Self-Advocacy Network and other groups have put together a beautifully worded petition urging NYU to drop the ads. Like Aunt B, I was moved by this statement:

Individuals with disabilities are not replacements for normal children that are stolen away by the disability in question. They are whole people, deserving of the same rights, respect, and dignity afforded their peers.

Yes. Children deserve better than what NYU and BBDO are doing in their name.

*Ever ornery, my brother told them his wish: "I wish you'd get the hell out of here." A couple of years later, Make-A-Wish changed the wording of its mission to "life-threatening medical conditions" rather than "terminally ill." My brother did get his wish, and he'll be 32 next month.