Helping Your Depressed Child

Description

Pediatric Psychologist Martha Barnard, Ph.D., helps parents become fluent with their child's specific experience of depression and offers them the right diagnostic and treatment information to help create a tailor-made treatment program that can be reinforced in the home. In Parenting Your Depressed Child, parents are empowered with an understanding of the root causes of their child's depression, and are taught how to assess ongoing symptoms and behaviors. Once a child's initial or ongoing depression has been established, parents are given step-by-step guidance for advocating for the child's health. They learn to evaluate which therapies are most appropriate for their particular situation, how to seek appropriate professional help, how to understand the myriad pharmacological treatments used with children today, and how to examine other diagnoses associated with depression that may be affecting their child. Parents then learn how the family will participate in their child's wellness by reinforcing cognitive-behavioral techniques at home. These include disciplining their child without exacerbating symptoms, learning how to help a child think positively by monitoring his or her thoughts, encouraging positive affirmations, and helping with visualization techniques and deep breathing

Martha Underwood Barnard, Ph.D., 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. Dr. Barnard is a former member of the National Task Force on the health status of children in the U.S., 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 and on youth suicide.