Your Child's Mental Health Diagnosis

Jacqueline Corcoran, PhD, is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the School of Social Policy and Practice, where her courses include child and adolescent mental health, clinical assessment, and cognitive behavioral therapy. She belongs to the National Association of Social Workers, the Council on Social Work Education, and the Society for Research and Social Work. She is also a licensed clinical social worker for children and parents. Dr. Corcoran shares the lived experience of having two children who have been diagnosed with a range of disorders.

What should parents do if their kids are among the one in six 6-to-17-year-olds diagnosed with a mental disorder? In this reassuring guide, clinical social worker Corcoran, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice, gives easy-to-understand advice. Dismiss debunked ideas like blaming “refrigerator mothers” for autism or thinking of homosexuality as a problem. A mind-boggling nine percent of 4-to-17-year-olds in the U.S. have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This condition can affect the whole family: parents of a child with ADHD are more likely to be divorced. Like adults, kids can suffer from social anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. OCD behavior like skin-picking, hair-pulling, and arranging items in specific ways can be a means of assuaging anxiety. Corcoran explains cognitive-behavioral therapy and “orthorexia nervosa,” an obsession with a fit and healthy lifestyle that’s not yet in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Among the discipline tips she offers are focus on consequences (if a child destroys something, don’t replace it) and offer choices; they’re better than a flat “no.” A genuinely helpful handbook.