Imagine that you’re 4 years old and that it’s 1968.

You’re brought into a small room, a “game room,” with a table, chair and three sugary snacks. You’re asked to pick one treat. You choose the marshmallow. Then you’re told that you can either have the marshmallow right away by ringing a bell, or wait a few minutes and get two marshmallows. Then you’re left alone for 15 minutes.

This seemingly simple experiment conducted by Austrian-born clinical psychologist Walter Mischel at Stanford University became known as “The Marshmallow Study.” But don’t let the silly name fool you. This study tested over 600 kids at the Bing Nursery School and has become one of the longest-running studies in psychology.

What Mischel actually wanted to explore had zero to do with kids’ desire for sweets, of course. The lead investigator wanted to test the concept of delayed gratification.

In the late 1990s and continuing on into the past decade, bipolar disorder started being diagnosed more and more in children. This became a problem only because the criteria for bipolar disorder in children have never been firmly established. Researchers developed their own set of criteria which contradicted the official diagnostic criteria for the disorder. The research criteria basically did away with the need for a manic or hypomanic episode, and instead replaced it with irritability and anger.

Coincidentally, a few pharmaceutical companies also released a set of medications — called atypical antipsychotics — which can be used to treat certain symptoms of bipolar disorder.

Doctors started diagnosing bipolar disorder in children with a looser set of criteria, and felt more at ease prescribing a treatment for it because these new medications had become available.

This set of circumstances led to a reported 40-fold increase in the past decade of bipolar disorder diagnoses in children. This suggests a pretty obvious problem in the diagnostic criteria, since nothing has changed so much in the past decade to offer a reasonable explanation for this sort of increase.

Parenting a child with ADHD can be especially tough during the summer. “Kids with ADHD blossom when they have a structured schedule, and summertime is notorious for having a lack of scheduling,” according to Stephanie Sarkis, Ph.D, a psychotherapist and author of Making the Grade with ADD: A Student’s Guide to Succeeding in College with Attention Deficit Disorder.

Psychotherapist and ADHD expert Terry Matlen, ACSW, agreed. Because most parents can’t mimic the tight structure of school, kids often get bored — and may get into trouble, she said. That’s because when kids with ADHD get bored, they seek out stimuli, which can be anything from picking fights with their families to playing with fire, she said.

Some parents discontinue their child’s medication during the summer, which poses another challenge, said Matlen, also author of Survival Tips for Women with ADHD. “That can create a situation where the child has a hard time with self-control, mood regulation [and] social behaviors.”

But while the summer can be challenging, you can absolutely overcome these obstacles and enjoy a fun break. Below, Sarkis and Matlen offer their excellent suggestions.

Teenage depression is just as serious as clinical depression suffered by adults of any age. Yet because of the unique situation most teens find themselves in — at a sensitive stage of their development and becoming comfortable with their own personality — it’s often hard for a teen to get help for feeling depressed.

We’re not talking feeling sad because of a breakup with their boyfriend or girlfriend. We’re talking about serious feelings last 2 weeks or longer of sadness, lethargy, lack of interest or pleasure in the usual activities in a person’s life, and even suicidal thoughts. These are the hallmarks of untreated depression.

Psych Central’s Ask the Therapists Daniel J. Tomasulo, Ph.D. & Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D. in this video talk about teenage and adolescent depression. Young adults experience depression more often than many adults, but there is hope for getting better. Here’s how.

I am one of those few 20-somethings who would prefer a simple Samsung model over an iPhone or Blackberry when shopping at AT&T. And yes, I do get the odd stare from the sales associate who isn’t sure why I wouldn’t pine for that touchscreen. I typically shrug and convey how I prefer to keep it simple, and will gladly purchase a phone that has an ideal keyboard for texting.

Texting has become an everyday facet of our lives. The feature serves as a platform that absolutely allows us to stay connected to others with instant communication. However, there is something to be said about the ways in which it has the potential to diminish our social skills, if we choose to allow it to do so.

Texting has the ability to reinforce ineffective communication. Individuals can ‘hide behind a screen’ to escape confrontation in friendships or romantic relationships.

The other week, my 5-year-old daughter broke her arm at the elbow. It was a serious break which required a call to 911, an ambulance ride, surgery, and an overnight stay at the hospital.

As her mom, I felt helpless. I couldn’t make her pain go away. I couldn’t fix her broken arm. So I simply put my head next to hers, and told her that I was here, and I wouldn’t leave her. That was the mantra I repeated over and over. And it was enough.

We humans break easily.

And I’m not talking simply about bones. Our feelings get hurt. Our self-esteem is fragile. We hurt each other with words and actions. We bully each other, steal from one another, gossip, verbally abuse, and assault those around us. We hurt ourselves by what we do. We cut or burn ourselves, neglect our health, abuse food and drugs, and engage in reckless behavior.

Others abuse us and neglect us. People who should love us hurt us. Sometimes simply getting through one day to the next takes an incredible amount of courage and strength.

When I read Richard Zwolinski’s most recent Therapy Soup blog post, this quote caught me off guard:

“While I know of suicidal youth as young …

Read more… »

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) defended the actions of its agents yesterday, saying they were only following procedure when they insisted on doing a patdown on a traumatized 4-year old girl. I hope the family finds a way to sue the TSA for all of the psychological counseling this little girl is going to need in the future.

The girl, Isabella Brademeyer, had already successfully passed through the security checkpoint at the Wichita, Kansas airport. But then she went over to hug her grandmother — her grandmother — who was still being processed by the TSA. The TSA pulled the grandmother, Lori Croft, out for a pat-down because she apparently set off the metal detector.

But c’mon… the little girl? She’s 4. She didn’t know any better.

That set off a flurry of activity among the TSA agents, who then insisted that the 4-year old also needed to undergo a patdown. Again… because she hugged her grandmother.

It’s common to have some concerns and worries about being pregnant, having a healthy child, giving birth, and parenting your little one, according to Pamela S. Wiegartz, Ph.D, and Kevin L. Gyoerkoe, PsyD, in their book, The Pregnancy & Postpartum Anxiety Workbook: Practical Skills to Help You Overcome Anxiety, Worry, Panic Attacks, Obsessions and Compulsions.

However, for some moms-to-be, anxiety becomes so severe and distressing that they’re unable to function day-to-day.

It’s only recently — over about the last decade — that researchers have begun exploring anxiety in pregnancy. Consequently, much more work is still needed.

But here’s what we do know.

Children, like all of us, continually experience loss. As much as they may celebrate their increased capacity to ‘do stuff’ like riding a bicycle or attending school, they also feel the loss of the special attention and privileges they had when they were younger and more dependent.

They feel loss when their family moves, when people in the family leave home, when pets die, when the boy or girl they like doesn’t like them, or when their best friend finds a new No. 1. They feel loss when holiday traditions change or vacations are suspended due to financial strain on the family. They feel loss when Grandpa can’t pick them up and twirl them around anymore, and when Grandpa dies.

Learning to grieve for losses great and small is a critical skill in a child’s healthy development. Children who do not learn to grieve are unequipped for life, as life and loss are indivisible.

Moms aren’t the only ones who struggle with postpartum depression. Dads struggle, too.

In this 2010 meta-analysis published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers reviewed 43 studies with over 28,000 participants and found that 10 percent of men had prenatal or postpartum depression. That’s more than double the rate of men who suffer from depression in the general population — 4.8 percent.

Symptoms of Depression

In their book The Pregnancy & Postpartum Anxiety Workbook: Practical Skills to Help You Overcome Anxiety, Worry, Panic Attacks, Obsessions and Compulsions, authors Pamela S. Wiegartz, Ph.D, and Kevin L. Gyoerkoe, PsyD, note that depression can strike dads at any time, from their wife’s pregnancy to months after their child’s birth.

Symptoms of depression can include depressed mood; loss of interest in activities; fatigue; changes in sleep; changes in appetite or weight; difficulty concentrating or making decisions; feelings of guilt or worthlessness; and thoughts of death or suicide.

Men, however, may struggle with different symptoms. The lead author of the above meta-analysis, James Paulson, told Scientific American (in this piece by Katherine Harmon) that some researchers have called for a change in the diagnostic criteria because men tend to struggle with irritability, detachment and emotional withdrawal.

Many of us have fond memories of Easter egg hunts from our childhood. I remember my parents hiding about two dozen little plastic colored eggs throughout our yard, and the excitement of going out to hunt for them with my two older brothers on a chilly Easter morning. The joy of finding one of those brightly colored eggs against the drab of the a winter-dead yard was one of the highlights of the day.

Because we didn’t have a lot of money growing up, the Easter eggs didn’t always contain a tiny toy or piece of candy. They often contained little slips of paper that you could turn in for something special in the future. An ice cream at Dairy Cream. A week of not having to dry the dishes (one of our chores). Little thoughts that would mean something to us kids (since not all gifts are instant or materialistic).

This holiday tradition remains fresh in my mind as one of those personal, family traditions I grew up with.

But my mom and dad’s role in this activity was limited to the purchase of the plastic eggs, putting things into them, and then hiding them in the yard. They never participated in the egg hunt, because it was a fun activity for the kids.