Children who have lost one or both parents while they were serving our country in the United States military have become known as Gold Star teens.

Losing a parent before the age of eighteen is catastrophic emotionally and can have lifelong devastating effects psychologically for any child.

Many Gold Star teens have lost their parent before the age of ten.  This particular group is at an extremely high risk, by multiples of six to ten times, for the incidence of severe psychiatric illness throughout their lives.

As a double Board Certified Adult and Child/Adolescent Psychiatrist in the State of Michigan, an Adult Psychoanalyst with the American Psychoanalytic Association and a Child Psychoanalyst with the Association for Child Psychoanalysis, I have treated many child and adult patients with very early parent loss suffering with severe anxieties and major depressions with melancholia, delayed grief reactions, unrecognized loss reactions, suicidal thoughts, serious suicide attempts, cutting, anorexia, bulimia, severe drug and alcohol addictions, panic attacks, legal troubles, school refusal, separation anxiety disorders, and severe panic disorders.

For more than thirty years I have treated children and their families four to five times weekly in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, with psychotropic medication as needed.  I have experienced in my patients the true happiness, permanent change and new hope that can replace the inner darkness of despair and hopelessness.  When psychic themes and connections regarding very early parent loss are made for children, their inner life narratives are transformed.  The experiences of very early loss become bearable and they no longer feel as alone and different.

With all of this in mind and the understanding that life is loss and what you do with it does make the difference, I cofounded Michigan Challenge, a Michigan Non-Profit, in 2016.  The mission became using outdoor experiential learning in a group approach to bring together groups of Gold Star teens for connection, support and to open up another piece of the world to them.  Using a Herreschoff designed, rare and beautiful classic schooner, the Perception, restored by organization volunteers, four day including overnight summer programs have been created.

In our program, Gold Star teens are offered tuition free life changing opportunities to learn traditional sail training techniques while living on a boat with other Gold Star teens, crewing, learning leadership skills, and making new friends who also have lost loved ones at an early age, often as a result of a violent death.

Helping each of them think about the possibilities in their own lives in a safe, secure environment while connecting more deeply to their inner self and the group members has been powerful for the Gold Star teens who have attended our programs in 2018 and 2019.  Some have returned and plan to return again.  It is truly an honor and a pleasure to be a part of Michigan Challenge with the ability to offer Gold Star children the opportunity to transform their lives.

Susan Wainwright, M.D.
Michigan Challenge Co-Founder