I want to second the recommendation made on 5/20 for familes of children to utilize National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). In my opinion, this is THE most important organization for family members to find. Their web address is: www.nami.org Their primary objectives are to support families and consumers, to provide education and training about mental illness, and to advocate for their family members who have mental health diagnoses. There is a wealth of information, training and support for families and you will be able to locate a NAMI group near you, no matter where you live. Please, for the sake of your children and yourself, get in touch with this organization. You will find help there. KKS, LCSW, Missouri, I work with children and adults with serious and persistent mental health disorders. .
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What generally happens when bipolar kids hit puberty?
David Miklowitz: "As you go up the age ladder, the symptoms tend to resemble those in adults more and more. When the kid becomes a teenager, the episodes are characterized by mixed symptoms, rapid cycling, psychosis, and severe irritability. ... The big issue in adolescence is that all kids strive for independence. They try to define themselves separately from their parents. If they have a psychiatric illness, that tends to derail them socially—they fall behind their peers. Other kids shun them or make up rumors, and they get isolated. Some of them aren't really ready for the developmental tasks of adolescence. By age 18 many kids feel ready to take on the world, but a lot of these kids don't. The other big worry is that adolescence is often the first time that kids go off their medications. They get to be 12 or 13 and say, 'I don't really have to do this." It can become a weapon against their parents. I worked with a kid who started leaving lithium tablets all over the house—on the table, behind the toilet, under his mother's pillow. This was his way of saying, 'look what I can do.'"
How can parents cope if they are struggling with some of the same behavioral issues that affect their kids?
David Miklowitz: "That comes up all the time. It's a very multifaceted problem. If the parent is unstable, the kid's going to be unstable. One of the issues is whether we can get the parents into the proper treatment if they also have a disorder. They may not have even been diagnosed. We also tell them they have to be better communicators with their kids than their neighbors. They have to learn skills that go beyond the normal. We try to get them to be a role model for the kid."
John Weisz, president and CEO, Judge Baker Children's Center, Boston: "We're not the parents. We're secondary. We do know specific parenting skills that can help, but if there are particular skills parents don't want to use, we respect that. Still, parent training is very helpful to so many of the families we serve. When children have significant behavioral or emotional problems, their parents need general parenting skills, but pushed to a much higher level than the norm. Sometimes a parent may feel 'if the therapist wants to see me, uh oh, that must mean I'm the problem.' That's not our view at all; we just want to support the parents in building special skills for the special challenges their kids face."
© 2008
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