Best selling author and Pulitzer Prize nominee Marya Hornbacher shares her experiences growing up with bipolar disorder and answers questions from The Balanced Mind Foundation parents.  Click here  to listen to this webinar held August 18, 2010.

Wozniak, J. et al. Journal of Affective Disorders (2001).

Comorbid bipolar disorder and conduct disorder may be a distinct familial subtype and not due to the chance co-occurance of the two disorders.

 "Bp kids have Special Angels"
by John S., age 9

I think that God is very kind
even though there is bipolar
that really messes up our minds
and makes us cry, rage and holler.

But, there is a group of many a mom.
Every one of them has a bp kid
Whom they help to lose the storms and find the calm.
For of bp they would like to the world to rid.

by George Lynn, M.A., C.M.H.C.

George Lynn is a psychotherapist in Bellevue, Washington. His book, Survival Strategies for Parenting Your ADD Child, is useful in understanding the inner world of a child with a neurobiological disorder (including bipolar disorder) that affects emotions.

What Mother's Day and Father's Day Means to Me
by Camden, Age 9

I don't have a wheelchair that automatically tells people who look at me that I was born with problems that limit me, but there are lots of things that happen inside my brain that they can not see. I have a brain that doesn't always work the way it's supposed to. Sometimes it gets stuck and I have a hard time showing my thoughts and feelings the right way.

This article, by B. Geller, et al investigates behaviors of prepubertal and early adolescent children diagnosed with bipolar disorder phenotype (PEA-BP). Examples for differentiating normal behaviors versus manic behaviors are provided.

Reliability of the Washington University in St. Louis Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (WASH-U-KSADS) Mania and Rapid Cycling Sections

BARBARA GELLER, M.D., BETSY ZIMERMAN, M.A., MARLENE WILLIAMS, R.N., KRISTINE BOLHOFNER, B.S., JAMES L. CRANEY, M.P.H., MELISSA P. DELBELLO, M.D., AND CESAR SOUTULLO, M.D.

Reprinted with permission from J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry, Volume 40, p. 450-455 (2001).

Objective: To investigate the reliability of the Washington University in St. Louis Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (WASH-U-KSADS) mania and rapid cycling sections. Method: The 1986 version of the KSADS was modified and expanded to include onset and offset of each symptom for both current and lifetime episodes, expanded prepubertal mania and rapid cycling sections, and categories for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and other DSM-IV diagnoses. To optimize diagnostic research, skip-outs were minimized. Subjects participated in the ongoing “Phenomenology and Course of Pediatric Bipolar Disorder” study. Mothers and children were interviewed separately by research nurses who were blind to diagnostic group status. In addition, ratings of off-site child psychiatrists, made from the narrative documentation given for each WASH-U-KSADS item, were compared with research nurse ratings. This work was performed between 1995 and 2000.

This is an article by a parent about her child's response to mood stabilizers.