Medicating Young Minds: How to Know if Psychiatric Drugs Will Help or Hurt Your Child

"Treating a child with drugs before it's clear what is going on is worse than not treating a child at all. Let's face it: We are experimenting on these kids without tracking the results."-Glen Elliott, M.D., Ph.D.

When you consider that 10 million children under the age of 18, including a growing number of preschoolers, are on anti-depressants and another 7 million are on stimulants for attention problems, it becomes obvious why Dr. Elliott has written this guide for parents who feel "they have no choice." As the nation's leading expert on psychiatric disorders in children and the leading researcher on the effects of psychiatric drugs on kids, Dr. Elliott says that doctors and even teachers are too quick to recommend medicating young minds rather than taking the necessary steps to find out if drugs are even necessary.Medicating Young Minds tells parents what to expect, the questions to ask, the treatment they deserve from a concerned doctor, and even what tests to demand to make sure that drugs are the best recourse. Parents do have a choice, says Dr. Elliott, and this book empowers parents to make their own decisions. With detailed, step-by-step advice, he counsels parents on how to become active and informed participants in the diagnostic and treatment process. The long-term consequences of putting kids on psychiatric drugs are still unknown, and Medicating Young Minds will be of critical interest to all parents, teachers, and doctors concerned with the welfare of children.