Helping Your Depressed Child: A Step-By-Step Guide for Parents

Martha Underwood Barnard

Jun 2003 · New Harbinger Publications

About this eBook

Written for parents of children who have been diagnosed with depression, Helping Your Depressed Child offers a step-by-step program to help parents advocate for their child’s mental health care. Psychologist Martha Underwood Barnard teaches readers how to evaluate which therapies are most appropriate for their child’s particular situation, how and when to seek professional help, and how to understand the pharmacological treatments used with children today. Barnard also discusses other diagnoses commonly associated with depression that may also be affecting your child, and stresses ways in which the whole family can participate in the depressed child’s wellness by reinforcing cognitive behavioral techniques at home, including:

• How to discipline your child without exacerbating their symptoms
• How to help your child think positively by monitoring his or her thoughts
• Encouraging positive affirmations, and helping with visualization techniques and deep breathing.

The clinical wisdom and insights of Barnard, one of the most skillful and thorough child psychologists and clinicians I have known, shine throughout this book...Parents who read this book will understand what childhood depression is, how it is diagnosed, how it is treated, and what they can do to advocate for their child.
— Michael A. Rapoff, Ph.D., professor, Behavioral, Sciences Department of Pediatrics, University of Kansas Medical Center

About the author

Martha Underwood Barnard, PhD, is a pediatric psychologist at the Children's Center of the University of Kansas Medical Center, and a faculty member in the Departments of Pediatrics and Child Psychiatry at the University of Kansas. She is a former member of the National Task Force on the Health Status of Children in the United States, and has testified before Congress. With over thirty years of experience working with children and families, she has done extensive research on childhood depression, PTSD, and self-esteem in kids, and has published widely on these topics as well as on youth suicide.