Medicating Children

Integrating analyses of clinical, political, historical, educational, social, economic, and legal aspects of ADHD and stimulant pharmacotherapy, Mayes and colleagues argue that a unique alignment of social and economic factors converged in the early 1990s with greater scientific knowledge to make ADHD the most prevalent pediatric mental disorder.

A persuasive rejection of mainstream child psychiatry that guides parents to understand their child's behavioral problems without stigmatizing diagnoses. With more than four million American children diagnosed with ADHD and other psychiatric disorders, taking a child to a psychiatrist is as common as taking them to soccer practice. But, disturbingly, a great number of children experience dangerous emotional and physical side effects from psychotropic medications. Where can parents who are eager to avoid shaming labels and drugs turn when their child exhibits disturbing behavior? Suffer the Children presents a much-needed alternative: child-focused family therapy. A family therapist for over twenty years, Marilyn Wedge shares the stories of her patients. Wedge presents creative strategies that flow from viewing children's symptoms not as biologically determined "disorders" but as responses to relationships in their lives that can be altered with the help of a therapist. Instructive, illuminating, and uplifting, Suffer the Children radically reframes how we as parents, as health professionals, and as a society can respond to problems of childhood in a considerate and respectful fashion.

Ten million children are on antidepressants and another 7 million are on stimulants for attention problems. As one of the nation's leading experts on psychiatric disorders in children and the effects of psychiatric drugs on kids, Elliott tells parents what to expect, what questions to ask, and what test to demand to make sure that drugs are the best recourse.

Over Medicating Our Youth provides knowledge for parents, educators, and physicians to consider the etiology or causation of behavioral conditions before medicating children with psychiatric and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) symptoms. The prescribing of stimulant and psychiatric medications prior to ruling out nutritional, physiological, and environmental causation for behavioral conditions requires reform. This book provides guidance for parents, educators, and physicians to utilize effective alternative treatments plans as well as assessments prior to prematurely medicating children. The recent United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) Child Foster Care report uncovered the injustice of overmedicating children with ADD stimulant and psychiatric drugs. The GAO report proves that a positive change in the treatment of childhood behavioral conditions should involve a more comprehensive assessment as to the causation of behavioral symptoms.

Integrating analyses of clinical, political, historical, educational, social, economic, and legal aspects of ADHD and stimulant pharmacotherapy, Mayes and colleagues argue that a unique alignment of social and economic factors converged in the early 1990s with greater scientific knowledge to make ADHD the most prevalent pediatric mental disorder.

The medication fact book is a comprehensive reference guide covering the most commonly prescribed medications in psychiatry. Composed of reader-friendly fact sheets and quick scan medication tables, this book offers key information on more than 100 of the most common medications clinicians use and are asked about in their practice.

Stein offers a powerful set of tools for parents of difficult teens, employing cognitive/behavioral and drug-free solutions.