Same issue of USA Today has a side article entitled "For Foster Kids, Oversight of Prescriptions is Scarce." The article isn't lengthy, but does point out an incredible increase in foster children being prescribed antipsychotics.

This begs an obvious question for me:

Why are foster children more psychotic that other children?

It's the same kind of question as "why are there more foster children percentage-wise in EBD classrooms?" It's not that foster children are... more

My eagle-eyed husband called me early this morning. He's on the road and was reading the USA Today and noticed the whole front section was covered with articles on children and antipsychotic meds. This same sweet husband is a regular reader of this blog (perhaps my only regular reader). And he knows good blog material when he sees it!

The article: New Antipsychotic Drugs Carry Risks for Children sheds light on the increase of antipsychotics being prescribed to children, even young children. The article cites an 80% increase in the last four years and... more

The Associated Press reported last week that this country is suffering from a major shortage of child psychiatrists. Here's the article. Case loads for child psychiatrists are astronomical -- about 750 disturbed children is an "average" caseload.

To illustrate this, think about the numbers. If a doctor has 750 patients that he/she needs to see on a regular basis (every 4-6 weeks is a common interval). That doctor works 8-hour days, seeing patients in 30 minute session. Said doctor would need 46.8 workdays to... more

For reasons I can not explain, I volunteered to teach a Parenting Your Teenager Bible Study at my church. I can explain why my committee felt the church needed such an offering, but not why I was the proper choice for the job.

My older stepchildren chortled at the idea. "Like you had a lot to do with raising us..." On one level they are right, since I was the non-custodial stepmom. But on another level they truly are clueless to all that "raising" a child means...a fact they may get when they are, say, 30 and parents themselves?

Anyway, I AM raising a teenager now,... more