A few weeks ago, I took my eight-year-old child to the doctor for croup. The doctor noticed that he was also wheezing. Our son had infantile asthma when we adopted him and occasionally has still has episodes of wheezing. We have a nebulizer at home for treatments and I used to take it with us if he was having a day of difficult breathing. I asked the doctor if my adopted child was old enough for an asthma inhaler. I explained my concern about not having an emergency treatment with us during hockey or soccer games. The doctor assured me that he was old enough and agreed... more

I am guilty. I admit to running out of children’s Motrin in the past and just giving my child half of an adult tablet. My thinking, like so many parents, was that children need the same medicine as adults, just in smaller doses, because they are smaller. However, that is not always the case. Some medications affect children much differently than they affect adults. When it comes to giving our children medications, we need to remember that they are not just miniature adults.

If you are fostering children, or if a child is placed with you, but not yet adopted, you need... more

For those of us privately adopting infants this is rather scary news. A new study showed a connection between a mother suffering from severe stress during the first trimester of pregnancy and her child developing schizophrenia later in life. The study identified death, or severe illness that could result in death, of a close relative as a severe stressor. The study did not identify the stress of making a plan for an unexpected pregnancy as a severe stressor. However, the stress involved in planning... more

Are you adopting a child that requires daily shots? The thought of giving your new child a shot everyday can be a little intimidating if you don’t have any experience giving injections. It is important for you to become confident in giving the shots for the health of the child you are adopting.

You may want to familiarize yourself with the feel of giving shots by practicing. You can fill your syringe with water and practice injecting the water into an orange or a grapefruit. Try to press the needle quickly through the skin and practice injecting the... more

Every two months I take my teenage daughter to see her psychiatrist. He always asks how she is doing, just as he has done for the past four years. After he asks her, he will ask me what I think. Then, based on our answers, he writes out prescriptions for medication for the next two months. About twice a year, he makes changes in her prescriptions. I have actually been impressed by the maturity of my teenage daughter’s responses over the past year. For example, today she looked right at him when she spoke. She told him that she has been having trouble with lying and stealing.

Whenever... more

"When you get down to it, treatment for most mental illnesses remains a matter of trial-and-error.” Well, a sentence like that is bound to catch my attention – mostly because I totally agree with it. The researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) are working with the National Institutes of Health on a project to identify biological processes that may be linked to specific psychiatric diseases, as a way to better categorize these disorders.

You’ve heard me rant about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual before (DSM). It is just a book of symptoms really. And many disorders have... more

I read a note from a friend today about her 10 year old who seems to push situations to the limit in their home, to the point where she is becoming dangerous either to herself or them…then once they restrain or contain her for safety, it enables her to calm down.

I see this cycle with LuLu as well. I’ve been carefully observing how the hospital staff handles this, trying to figure out how I’m going to handle it when she returns. One of LuLu’s major problems is her total lack of impulse control. Another is her inability to connect her logical thought with her emotional... more

Most parents of children on psychiatric medications are aware that in 2004 the FDA put a “black box” warning on all antidepressants. They declared that the use of antidepressants in children and adolescents was associated with a higher risk of suicide. The warning is carefully worded not to say that antidepressants should not be given to children or adolescents, but that they patients should be carefully monitored.

This... more

I don’t know about you, but trips to the psychiatrist always boost my spirits. Ever the optimist, I am always hopeful that this time we will find the right combination of medications to make life easier. Today was Lyn’s appointment and I think I may have seemed a little desperate when I spoke with her psychiatrist. Her words and actions lately haven’t had too much to do with reality.

She has been seeing the same psychiatrist for medications for the past three years. He was also the psychiatrist who saw my now adult daughter for six years, so we have a long history.... more

Today when I took the four-year-old, “A” to her counseling session I got an unexpected surprise. The therapist who provides her counseling looked me in the eyes and said, “We need to talk.” I was a little apprehensive as I followed her into her office.

Then she said those dreaded words, the ones you hate to hear from a therapist if you have a special needs child. “I’m afraid that I’ve done all I can for “A,” so I’d like to close out her case.” My brain screamed, “WHAT, YIKES, ARE YOU SERIOUS?” I looked at her calmly and nodded.

She... more