Please Don't Label My Child: B

A leading child psychiatrist warns against today's alarming eagerness to brand kids with a diagnosis of emotional illness and shows parents where to look for the real culprits.

In recent years, the diagnosis of ADHD, depression, and bipolar disorder in children has skyrocketed. From 1987 to 2003 the number of kids in the United States who were prescribed psychiatric medications tripled. If this trend continues, within a generation half of American children will be on some kind of psychiatric drug. Are more and more of our kids really being born with faulty brain chemistry? Or are they being misdiagnosed at an alarming rate?

Child psychiatrist and former president of the American Holistic Medical Association Scott Shannon argues that behavioral and emotional problems are far too often treated as medical problems rather than what they really are, a response to various kinds of stress, which parents can learn to identify and eliminate from their children's lives. With Please Don't Label My Child, Dr. Shannon helps parents to zero in on the stressors that could be at the root of their child's problem, from nutrition, poor sleeping habits, and toxins to a school that's a poor fit for a child's learning. The happy result, Dr. Shannon shows, is often a child's return to mental health, without intense, long-term medical intervention.

SCOTT M. SHANNON, MD, is a pediatric psychiatrist, board certified in general psychiatry, child/adolescent psychiatry, and holistic medicine. He currently serves as medical director for four residential treatment centers for children and teens in northern Colorado.

EMILY HECKMAN is a full-time writer and a former publishing professional.