Advice & Support

"I was born with an extra gene called misery": A 22-year-old singer/songwriter's slam poetry on her journey through depression and anxiety.

"Michaela did not feel like a normal child. She was crying. She was on the floor. She felt like she should never have been born. These were the things that were coming out of her mouth."

Jacob's outbursts and inability to follow directions led to disaster in preschool, and other parents even banned him from play dates. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy with his mom helped this precocious 6-year-old get his feelings under control, and get back on track.

John and Kandi, whose daughter Sofia had selective mutism, offer advice on how the right mental health expert, the right techniques, and getting everyone on board can help your child find her voice.

Sofia was always shy, but when she started preschool she didn't speak at all—not a word. 'As soon as we walked through the doorway, she wouldn't even respond to me,' her mom said. But after diagnosis and behavioral treatment for selective mutism, now she's speaking to teachers and other students. 'I don't brave talk anymore, Mommy,' Sofia said. 'I just talk.'

Ben's OCD started with fears that his parents would disappear. For a while his rituals—touching things, saying things—worked to allay them. But by the time he was 13, the anxiety was so extreme he couldn't go to school. He could barely leave his room.

It started as hugging—a little too aggressively, and at the wrong times. Then pushing, pinching, hitting, biting. Audrey knew it was time to get help.

"Going through the process was difficult," said her father. "There were times when I literally had to put Annie over my shoulder and off we’d go to their time-out room. But it worked. I was very skeptical, but now I’m a firm believer that it's as important, if not more important, than the medication."

Annie was impossible to control—"she just would not listen"—and her first grade teachers felt they couldn't reach her. "She was there but she wasn't there." How medication and behavioral therapy turned things around for her, and her parents.

First it was certain words that upset 7-year-old Sophie. Then many words—so many that the family couldn’t keep up. And sounds. "We had gotten to the point where it took over our lives,” said Sophie’s mother Laura. “I didn’t know what to do besides scream, because I couldn’t fix it."