There’s a learning curve to managing antidepressants in your teenager’s life. Things I hadn’t considered until I was faced with them. If you read Lesson #7, you’ll know I wasn’t immediately sold on antidepressants for my thirteen year old daughter. Almost as soon as I got my head around it, I found a brand new… Read More Lesson #10: There’s a learning curve to antidepressants

As a parent, it’s important to know what to do if you think you spot signs of depression in your teenager, because depression left untreated can get worse. Equally important, in the early stages, common teenage behaviour can aggrevate the illness. If you read Lesson #1: How to Spot Signs of Depression in Teenagers, you’ll… Read More Lesson #9: What to do if you spot signs of depression in your teenager

What to do while waiting for help is one of the most important lessons to learn in parenting depression, because it’s on you, the parent. Whatever happens, however easy or difficult it is to lead your child to safety, it’s on you to keep going. I am so fortunate with a family doctor and means… Read More Lesson #8: What to do while waiting for help to help

There’s a lot of debate about antidepressants for teenagers. So how do you know, as a parent, if your teenager needs antidepressants for their depression. One on the one hand, doctors will tell you that antidepressants, combined with psychotherapy, is a very effective treatment for clinical depression. On the other, studies show that antidepressants may… Read More Lesson #7: How do you know if your teenager needs antidepressants

There are few struggles in parenting that have plagued me more than the topic of smartphone use. For those with kids younger than my own, I have some hard-earned parental wisdom: delay and restrict smartphone use for as long as possible. Because once that genie’s out of the bottle, it’s really hard to put her… Read More Lesson #5: Delay and restrict smartphone use