Personal, Family, Grief Chris Coulter Personal, Family, Grief Chris Coulter

The Photo That Never Changes

In January 2017, twenty-one months after my daughter Maddie died at fourteen, I wrote about the photos on my fridge. Everyone else's get swapped out at the end of the school year. Hers does not. Nine years on, I'm putting the piece back up unchanged, with one correction: I was wrong about what her brothers were carrying, and wrong about why.

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We Told Everyone It Was Her Stomach

Maddie was in the youth psychiatric ward in North York. Twice. Her friends would call the house and I'd tell them she had a stomach thing and would be home soon. She asked me to keep it quiet and I did. Chris Coulter on the two months nobody visited, why a broken back fills a room and this doesn't, and the decision he never realised he was making.

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The Kids Who Never Cause Problems Worry Me the Most

Every parent keeps a mental list of the kid they worry about. The kid who never causes problems isn't on it. Chris Coulter on why high achievers, helpers, and conflict-avoiders are the hardest to read, how to know when to worry about teenage behaviour that looks perfect from the outside, and four questions that help you get your teenager to open up before "fine" becomes a wall.

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