Book Review by Susan Resko, Executive Director

Susan Resko, M.M.
The Balanced Mind Foundation Executive Director

I’m often asked how I can both raise a child with a mood disorder AND work for The Balanced Mind Foundation.  My answer is that I compartmentalize my life, which includes delegating the dozens of book reviews The Balanced Mind Foundation is asked to do each year.  I cherish my 20 minutes each night before I nod off to sleep and save that time for books I want to read that have nothing to do with psychiatric illness.

I made an exception with Judith Warner’s We've Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication. The New York Times best selling author’s newest book premise intrigued me. Warner set out to write a book with the working title, Affluent Parents and Neurotic Kids; the premise of which was that today’s helicopter mothers are overanalyzing, overpathologizing and overmedicating their kids in order to boost their performance, get them into better schools and avoid the unpleasant parts of parenting. 

However, when she launched into the project, Warner discovered just the opposite.