Parent Resources

From TED: What would it be like if we helped parents unpack their own childhood, so they don’t have to carry that baggage and put it on their children’s shoulders?

Where ableism and adultism allows disabled children to be seen as unreliable narrators of their own experience, sexual violence in institutions will continue to be pervasive.

This wave of emotional distress is a perfectly reasonable human response to living our lives in an increasingly isolated and uncertain world.

The child psychiatrist talks about the importance of seeing the big picture and why parents shouldn't "be afraid if their kid is in distress."

From Psyche: Understanding, being understood and sharing a meaningful life are central to feelings of belonging, which in turn are fundamental to wellbeing and recovery from mental health problems.

People who can’t take care of themselves need support and protection, but guardianship provides neither. I know: I've lived it.

From Doughty Street Chambers: People with learning disabilities and/or autism who have experienced and survived institutionalisation often carry the psychological scars for many years.

Parents, beware: Disability rights lawyer Diane Smith Howard shares disturbing findings on conditions at youth residential treatment facilities.

From Darcia Narvaez, PhD: Everyone needs to learn to grieve losses and deal with shock. Here are practices that build resilience in children (and everyone).

I grew up in Rhodesia, a British colony in southern Africa. Until the age of 16, I lived on the grounds of Ingutsheni Mental Hospital where my father worked. As a psychiatrist, he had enormous power.

My child talks about wanting to die. She is only 9 years old. There is so much information out there about what family or friends should say to people who are suicidal, but I’m wondering if there is special advice for supporting a child or young person versus an adult.

My sister was told if she took medications everything would be fine. But everything was not fine, and the medications sent her down a path of no return.

From Mark Goulston MD/Psychology Today: Do emotionally orphan children turn to drugs to fill the void?

This is a book about stories, urging families to recognize their own strengths and create new narratives on the path ahead.

From YES! Magazine: "Trauma is an overwhelming threat that you don’t know how to deal with," says Dr. Gabor Maté. "Our job, as human beings, is to learn from our suffering."

From The Washington Post: The aftershocks of #FreeBritney could continue to rattle the American legal system long after Spears’s victory.

Two National Empowerment Center leaders discuss eCPR, a process for helping youth—or anyone—through an emotional crisis using three simple steps.

Around the Web: A newspaper investigation discovered that the state continued to pay psychiatric residential treatment facilities millions when they repeatedly broke rules meant to ensure children's safety and well-being.

From The Fayetteville Observer: "We are ruining people’s lives, and we’re doing it in the most expensive way possible," said State Rep. Verla Insko. "It’s inhumane and irresponsible. It is a government failure."

An interview with Elisa Lacerda-Vandenborn about the consequences psychology and mental health treatment can have for indigenous children.

It takes a long time to recover from a psychotic episode, I understand now, and I wish someone had found a way, especially during those early years of her troubles, to give Rachel more space and time to find her own path to health.

From Chronic Illness Trauma Studies: The impact of one of the ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) in particular - emotional neglect - is huge and underrecognized.

From The New Yorker: The Christian organization Teen Challenge, made up of more than a thousand centers, claims to reform troubled teens. But is its discipline more like abuse?

“Eating disorder recovery is about rejecting oppressive values.” Therapist Shira Collings discusses person-centered approaches to dealing with food-related challenges in youth.

My postpartum anxiety diagnosis became subsumed by an arbitrary diagnosis of depression. And this diagnosis has followed me for 30 years and counting.