Customer Reviews

Raising a Moody Child: How to Cope with Depression and Bipolar Disorder

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As the mother of a bipolar child, I've read just about everything available. While "The Bipolar Child" informs about childhood bipolar disorder, "Raising A Moody Child" assumes that, as parents, we already know about the disorder and now need nuts-and-bolts coping strategies and techniques. (Am not knocking "The Bipolar Child." It was a necessary, groundbreaking book.)

I found that this book, however, offered what our family needs at this point in our daughter's life: tips, ideas, suggestions, and specifics to help parents and bipolar children cope.

The authors clearly respect parents' existing base of knowledge about bipolar and trust them enough to make use of the information provided without having to rehash the details of the disorder ad infinitum.

While this book may be informative to those who want to know more about some of the issues parents of bipolar children face, the book clearly is aimed specifically at the parents who already are on the front lines.

The book is written in a clear, no-nonsense, easy-to-follow fashion. I came away from this book with numerous strategies for helping my daughter deal with her mood swings--(techniques ranging from Playdough art projects to smacking a tennis ball against the garage wall).

This is an excellent read for any parent struggling with the problems of a bipolar child. Obviously, it's not a cure-all, but it's easy to read and, as 'bipolar parents' know, ideas for coping mechanisms are always welcome.

I appeciated the authors' directness and writing style. Although I read the book all the way through, I still pick it up now and then to flip to various sections for new ideas, to refresh my memory about a medication, or to give myself a pep talk.

Thanks so much to the authors for writing this book, and to my child's therapist for recommending it.

Finally, a book that addresses all sides of this painful spectrum - lovingly, practically, and compassionately. This book explains Depression and Bipolar Disorder along with strategies to deal with it effectively, in language that parents and kids can understand. Together, they can take the actions that lead to succesful and happy lives.

It is one thing to face a singular loss, but yet another when the grief of an ongoing condition presents itself on a daily. basis. This book goes a long way to helping all concerned deal with that reality.

I work as an inpatient clinician on a child/adolescent unit. This book answers the questions and gives the guidance I am frequently asked for. Clearly it is a book that was written by very knowledgable professionals who have a compasionate understanding for what the overwhelmed parents of these children need. It is clearly written and full of practical advice and useful tools. I strongly recommend it for anyone with a child/teen with a mood problem. If you know one of these parents-buy it as a gift for them-they are probably too busy dealing with their life to get it for themselves.

Although The Bipolar Child had great insight as to why my child was diagnosed ADHD at 6 and then rediagnosed Bipolar at age 14, I found this book to be extremely helpful as to what needs to follow now that my son is Bipolar. I have to agree with one of the other reviews written, that this book contains information parents are "assumed" to already know, when in fact, we do not. If you have a child suffering from Bipolar or depression, I highly recommend reading this book.

This book was helpful in describing different types of biploar disorders.
It also described how people have adjusted to and accepted the mood swings their children go thru while dealing with medication trial and errors. Every child is different and there is no cut and dried "recipe" for bipolarity treatment.
It was most helpful for me in deciding to purchase this book to "look inside" the book. Being able to view the table of contents and an excerpt from the book helped me decide if this book was the help I was looking for. And it was.
The book also described how the entire family is affected and their involvment in the solutions, which I found to be helpful to know we were not alone in our struggles.

I just bought this book and received it yesterday, and it's already making an impact in my life. I can't believe that someone else's family has gone through exactly what we're going through with one of our kids. I'm looking forward to getting a lot of help and great ideas from this book, and hoping to learn to cope better with my moody child, without so many feelings of guilt in the process.

This book is so well informed and engagingly written that I read it in a way I almost never read `advice' books: start to finish. It begins by dispelling the myths that keep moody children from getting help, moves to identifying different problems and their severity, and then lays out recent research as to the causes of disorders. Parts II and III discuss getting treatment ("Who are the players in the system?" is a particularly useful section for the uninitiated, as are sections on managing medication and making the right judgment about therapy) and "Helping Your Child to Cope"--sixty pages of clear and humane advice. (This section includes everything from understanding the law regarding educational services to managing dire crises.) Part IV addresses the affect that mood disorders can have on a family, once again offering practical suggestions that are never without the conceptual rigor that drives the book. Engaging examples of children who seem like real human beings, not specimens, are put forward in every chapter. The authors' thirty years of collective experience in working with families shows.

My favorite section is found in Chapter Five, "Getting the Big Picture." After having shown the main difficulties in sorting out a child's mood problems, the authors suggest some "rules to live by." Given how complicated mood disorders can be, you might wonder how the general "rules" here could be correlated to the "problems." Here is an example. "As you learned in Chapter 4, children's mood disorders often come with associated problems or co-occuring disorders. Families we've worked with have found it helpful to think about their problems as falling into separate `piles.'" The authors then give examples of children with more than one problem and explain how these can be best managed by distinguishing them. "One pile may be left alone in a corner until other piles are dealt with." We do this (and fail to do this) all the time in other spheres of life. Have you ever burnt something on the stove because you're talking on the phone? In the world of emotion, however, multi-tasking becomes more treacherous. The problems of a disturbed child will seem overwhelming unless you learn how to look at each problem separately. The authors have a gift for teaching parents how to break things down without losing a sense of the child as a whole person.

Julia Brown