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Empty Plates, Troubled Minds: New Research Exposes Mental Health Costs of Food Insecurity

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A Canadian study links food insecurity to developmental disorders, suicidal ideation, and substance use among children.

Featured Articles

How schizophrenia’s devastation turned into a story about hope

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Ten golden rules the family learned on their joint path to healing with 'unconditional love' as the ultimate medicine.

Record levels of stress-related sick leave – are amphetamines the solution?

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Stress-related sick leave is on the rise, with a 25% increase in five years. The most affected are young mothers aged 30-39. The Swedish Social Insurance Agency writes that the solution to this is for patients (mothers) to find a good balance between work-leisure-rest, which is certainly true, but which can also be easier said than done. See the article here.

Out & About – Boarding school survivors annual conference

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Everything that is written about the harm that happens to children who are sent away to school may also be true when children are taken into care. Every time, a child is removed from their home, it is a cause for concern, and no boarding school survivors are not the privileged elite that so many are inclined to label us with.

"Mad in the Family" Podcast

Blogs & Personal Stories

A hand holds out pills. A child is out of focus in the background.

For-Profit Healthcare Is a Predator; Its Main Prey Is Our Young

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Labeling kids with “brain diseases” sets them up for failure. This explains why the U.S. has so many youth crises.

School Phone Bans and “Mental Health”

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Banning school phones is not an answer to improving mental health.
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SAFE: Survivors And Families Empowered—An Update

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We hope to combat the increasing reliance on force, too often used with the justification “for your own good.”

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Survivors And Families Empowered (SAFE) have launched a pilot project to help families seeking support for their loved ones. 
 
We invite you to fill out their Family Survey so they can bring credibility and value to their pilot project at SAFE.  
 
Check out their website here.

Support Groups

MIA offers moderated, online peer-support groups for parents of both minor and adult children. The U.S./Canada group meets each Tuesday on a drop-in basis. The U.S./Europe group meets on the second Thursday of each month.  Learn more and sign up here.

For info on other online and in-person support groups, including those for parents and families, click here. To suggest more for the list, please email [email protected].

Q&A: What Is Executive Function, and How Can Parents and Teachers Help Kids Focus? In her latest piece, author, teacher, and advocate Ann Bracken describes EF and lays out multiple approaches designed to aid teachers, parents, and teens themselves.

Do you have a question of your own? Submit it for an online reply. For past Q&As on a range of topics, check out the archives.

Psychiatric Drug Info

Did you know:

  • That longer-term studies of children given a diagnostic label of ADHD have found worse outcomes for medicated youth?
  • In a large NIMH study, researchers concluded that few youth “benefit long-term” from antipsychotics (neuroleptic drugs)?
  • That use of marijuana, stimulants, and antidepressants increase the risk that a youth will receive a diagnostic label of bipolar disorder?

Research on psychiatric drug use in children and adolescents

Research on non-drug treatments

Resources Information on withdrawal from psychiatric drugs. Directory of therapists/providers who support drug withdrawal.

Parenting Today Series