The experience of major depression is not solely a personal event especially when discussing young children- families are affected, school life is effected and certainly young children do not understand why it is they are feeling the way they are. When the sufferer is a child, the family is ultimately involved in all aspects of the experience from onset diagnosis, to remission and recovery. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is estimated 11 percent of children are taking antidepressants; from 1988-2008 the use of antidepressants in children has skyrocket 400 percent. Prescriptions for psychiatric drugs in children and adolescents have skyrocketed in the past 20 years. There is little doubt that children being diagnosed with bipolar disorder is happening more often than ever before, an article published in The Archives of General Psychiatry, children are being diagnosed with bipolar disorder multiplied 40-fold from 1994 to 2003. "Twenty years ago, our society began regularly prescribing psychiatric drugs to children and adolescents, and now 1 out of every 15 Americans enters adult-hood with a 'serious mental illness,'" (Whitaker 246).
There is little doubt that childhood bipolar disorder is being diagnosed more frequently than ever before (Foltz 34). Is this because society has become more accepting of mental illness? Or are doctors too quick to take a pen out and write a prescription? Many believe that medicating the children is the answer and best way to manage symptoms, would parents feel the comfortable knowing the long term side effects, or a 'extremely rare' side effect happening with their child? In short, where does a child with oppositional behaviors, and a fair degree of moodiness end, and where does a child with bipolar disorder .
begin?.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) identifies depression, rage, mania, low tolerance as characteristics of early onset bipolar disorder.