Dr. Daniel Amen's Tips for Parents Who Have Run Out of Options for Help

Core conversation number seven. Get kids help when they need it. As I mentioned earlier, we are seeing an epidemic rise in anxiety, depression, ADHD, and addictions in young people, unlike anything ever seen before. In fact, I believe we are on the front edge of a tidal wave of mental health issues among the young. It is often years from the time a child first starts to struggle until they get help. You cannot be mentally strong or have emotional freedom if you are a prisoner of your mind. The numbers are staggering. In a recent study, 57% of teenage girls report being persistently sad. 30% of girls have thought of suicide, 24% have planned suicide, and 13%, or one in eight girls, have actually attempted suicide. Nothing about this is okay. Young males are also struggling with increasing rates of ADHD, depression, and addiction. How do you know when it's time to seek professional help for the young people in your life? It's time to seek help if their thoughts, their feelings, or their behavior interfere with their ability to be successful in their relationships with their family or friends, at school or work, or how they feel about themselves. The first step is never medication by itself. Be wary of any professional where medicine is the first and only answer. There's a board-certified child and adult psychiatrist. I believe in using medication when it's appropriate, but it is never the first and only thing I do. Do simple things first, such as improve their diet, get them to exercise, and start simple supplements, especially geared to their brain type, which you can discover in the program materials. Limit devices. One of the best conversations you can have is to teach kids to discipline their minds and eliminate the ants or the automatic negative thoughts that steal their happiness. In the program materials, there is a whole module on teaching kids how to manage their minds to think in accurate, positive, and hopeful ways. Kids are always better when parents model healthy thinking patterns. If you are struggling with your own brain or mental health, it is important for you to get help. Children are like violins. They play the stress of their parents. How can you start this important conversation with your kids or grandkids when they appear to be struggling? Say something like, it seems like you're going through a hard time, and stop. Listen. Do you want to talk about it? Is there anything you need from me? How can I support you through this? Open the conversation. Many parents deny what is going on in themselves and their kids. Don't do that. Let me close raising mentally strong kids with one of my favorite stories. 10-year-old Timmy was referred to me by a school psychologist because he was having problems in school. He got into fights on the playground, refused to do his homework, and was angry and depressed. Tim's dad was an Oakland police officer and wanted nothing to do with seeing a shrink. He just needs a good spanking, his father often told his mother. At my insistence, the father grudgingly came to the first appointment. Timmy's scan showed a pattern I call the ring of fire, where his brain was working way too hard. I gave him some simple supplements to calm his brain and taught him strategies to love his brain, especially using this question. Is this good for my brain or bad for it? During the evaluation, it was clear to me that Timmy and his dad had a lousy relationship, and that was contributing to Timmy's problem. He felt he could never please his father, and that his father just thought he was just a bad boy. Since the family lives six hours from the clinic and couldn't come regularly for appointments, I persuaded the dad to watch our online course on raising mentally strong kids, which is in the program materials. At their first follow-up appointment a month later, things in this family had dramatically changed. Rather than blaming Timmy for the problems, the father took an active role in helping him. He spent special time with Timmy, learned how to listen, noticed what he liked more than what he didn't. He also helped Timmy take a problem-solving approach to his struggles, rather than trying to push his own solutions on him. After several months, the father wrote me the following letter. Your work in this course changed my whole relationship with Timmy. I went from being angry, ineffective, and critical to loving, present, and firm. For the first time in years, I feel joy when I'm around my son instead of anger and frustration. Later, he told me, I'm so grateful you helped me be effective with my son. Unknowingly, I was setting him up for disaster. So many of the kids we pick up on the street for criminal behavior have problems with their parents. Tim was a lot more vulnerable when we were not close. You can help your children and grandchildren too. The answer to the epidemic of brain and mental health problems in kids is not more medication. It is better brain health and deeper relationships and using these seven core conversations. This information applies not only to parents, but also to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and anyone who mentors kids of any age. I want to encourage you today to go deeper with your conversations and set a solid foundation of connectedness, which protects their mental health. Together, we can help our kids be mentally strong because ultimately, your life is not just about you. It is about generations of you.