Should You Medicate Your Child's Mind?: A Child Psychiatrist Makes Sense of Whether to Give Kids Psychiatric Medication

This book provides both the pros and cons of the many medications that a parent may be asked to consider for a child's mental condition--and also does an excellent job addressing the family and school dynamics of medicating a child's mind. Very sensitively written, a welcome feature after reading several other books that were far more "cut and dried." Roberts raises a number of points of which we were previously unaware.

Easy to use and gave me all the information I needed in a format that was practical. In a letter to my child's pediatrician, I was objecting to my child's medications and the book gave me the facts I needed to clearly make my points with the doctor. My child was being administered amphetamine-class drugs for what was considered ADHD-type behavior at school. These drugs were given on a "diagnostic" basis but there seemed to be no agreement as to whether the amphetamines were successful with my son or not and the doctor's idea was to just increase the amphetamines or change the times of day the drug was administered. However, with the help of Dr. Roberts' book, I was able to clearly express to the doctor and my child's school the fact that my son's objectionable behaviors in school are all listed as side effects of the amphetamines and my child's inability to focus on his studies has long been surpassed by these more troubling behaviors such as irritation, violent outbursts, and depression. Furthermore, the book gave me information about markers for ADHD and I was able to challenge our doctor's assumption that my child has ADHD at all. - Posted for CSC, New York City

This book is a no-nonsense, direct, and realistic summary of the myriad of childhood psychological disorders and the medication used to treat them. It is relatively short and gets right to the point (thank you). She is rightfully critical of the tendency for hasty diagnoses, and medicating children without exploring all aspects of the problem. She uses examples from her practice, lists typical symptoms for each disorder, available medication, and also details other possibilities to consider. She stresses that medications treat symptoms and not the particular diagnosed disorder; the reason being that most psychological disorders have overlapping symptoms, and so a label of Bipolar, for example, may require medications typically prescribed for ADD or depression in addition to a mood stabilizer. At the end of the book she addresses parenting styles and how they can affect a child's behavior. She comes down hard of permissive parenting styles, and I agree that it can lead to out-of-control behavior; however, she leans heavily toward authoritarian approaches, which in my opinion can lead to other, different problems that are no less challenging. Aside from the parenting advice, I highly recommend this book to anyone considering medicating their child.

Before you get caught up in the wild success stories of the next miracle drug, or start diagnosing your child based on posts you have read on the Internet, please read this book! Dr. Roberts does an excellent job of cutting through all the hype surrounding children's psychiatric medications and popular diagnosis' and really educates the reader on a broad range of issues that may be affecting your child. She does a great job explaining how many different factors may have an effect on your child's behavior and one drug that treats one symptom is rarely the answer to a long term solution to dealing with your child's diagnosis. Dr. Roberts educates the reader on everything from choosing a doctor (and the right type of doctor) for your child, to properly communicating with the doctor, to the many diagnoses your child may receive, to the types of drugs and their side effects that may be prescribed and the many other actions you as a parent can take to improve your child's chance of success. The book does a great job of instilling the idea that you, as the parent, are your child's number one advocate and are solely responsible for making the final decisions regarding your child's health. This is not a responsibility to be taken lightly and without educating yourself properly with the help of books like this!