17/03/2026
💜 It's Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Week and this one is personal.
Most people are surprised to learn that children get arthritis. My son has lived with it for 8 years.
For three of those years, we didn't have a name for what was happening to him. We were told it was growing pains. We weren't taken seriously, not until the day he couldn't walk from our lounge room to the kitchen.
By the time we finally had a diagnosis, the damage was already done, permanent joint damage that didn't need to happen, if we'd been heard sooner. He has been a wheel chair user, he has missed enormous chunks of school. He has had multiple steroid injections into most of the large joints of his body i.e. hips, knees, ankles, shoulders.. He has never had a pain-free day.
And through all of it he has never once met another child in our area with the same condition. Not one. That kind of loneliness is its own burden. Growing up feeling like you're the only one, like your experience is too hard to explain, like nobody around you truly gets it.
This year's Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Week theme is "Kids with Arthritis Can't Wait" and those words hit differently when you've lived them. Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis is not the wear and tear arthritis most people think about in older adults. JIA is an autoimmune condition where the immune system mistakenly attacks the body's own joints, causing chronic inflammation, pain, and damage. It can affect children from toddlers upward, and it can also impact the eyes and other organs. It is serious, it is complex, and it is far more common than most people realise.
An estimated 6,000 to 10,000 children under the age of 16 in Australia are living with JIA, as common as childhood diabetes. Think about that for a moment. How many of us have ever heard of a child with arthritis? That gap in awareness is exactly why so many families spend years without answers, and why so many kids, like mine, grow up feeling like they are completely on their own with it. When you live in a regional area, that isolation runs even deeper. No local support group. No other kid at school who understands. Just your family, doing their best, figuring it out as they go.
80% of children with JIA experience daily pain
It can cause permanent joint and eye damage if left untreated
It is incurable, and around half of those diagnosed will have it for life.
As a therapist, I see the ripple effects of chronic pain and delayed diagnosis on children's mental health, their sense of self, their relationships, their ability to participate in school and play, the way the body becomes so sensitive to pain processing. As a mum, I've lived it from the inside.
If your child has persistent joint pain, swelling, or stiffness, especially in the morning, please don't wait. Push for answers. Trust your instincts. The earlier JIA is treated, the better the outcomes.
And if you're a family navigating this in Far North Queensland please reach out. You are not as alone as it feels. 💜
You can learn more and support Australian families through JAFA, Juvenile Arthritis Foundation Australia 👉 jafa.org.au
Kids with arthritis can't wait. And neither should we. 💜
Welcome to Treehouse Theraplay. We are a multi-disciplinary team made up of Accredited Mental Health Social Workers, Psychologist and Allied Health Professionals. We specialise in working with children, teen, and families providing therapeutic support.
