LDC Blog

Mental Health Matters! is a blog on children's mental health topics, begun in July 2009. You can find the weekly posts here. Visit that site if you would like to join in the discussion.

Mental Health Matters! will also be posted and archived on this site.

In this blog, the Center’s mental health experts comment on children’s mental health matters, drawing on their own clinical experience at the Center, current research and new findings in the field. From time to time we will address controversial topics with an eye to providing balanced, practical information to parents who are making decisions about how to promote the healthiest development in their own children or grandchildren.

  • Tips for Talking To Children about Sexual Abuse

    The appalling sexual abuse situation at Penn State University troubles all of us. The thoughts of parents inevitably turn to their children – wondering if they have educated and protected them sufficiently, and worrying if they will be able to recognize the signs of abuse if such a horror...

  • Helping children through 9/11 anniversaries

    The 10-year anniversary of the attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, is on the horizon. Many of us who were fortunate enough not to be directly involved in the events or losses were nevertheless shaken and even mildly traumatized by those events. Anniversaries have a way of re-evoking the...

  • Is the news hurting your child?

    Our Mental Health Matters Blog generally presents and discusses some new research findings in the field of children’s mental health and emotional development. This posting will be different, because we would like to provide some practical advice to parents at this time that there are so...

  • Can excessive video game play contribute to ADHD?

    So many of the parents that we talk with at Lucy Daniels Center are concerned with the amount of time that their child spends before one screen or another. Parents whose children have problems with attention are particularly concerned – as are we – about whether there could be some...

  • Addressing language challenges is also good for mental health

    Some children have difficulty understanding or processing language. This range of difficulties are grouped as “receptive language” problems. It is obvious that children with unresolved receptive language problems will have difficulties fulfilling their potential in...

  • Parental warmth is a mental health vaccine

    Psychoanalysts have long emphasized the importance of the early mother child relationship, particularly, the importance for a child of having at least one stable loving investment from at least one parent from infancy. This belief has been largely based on tens of thousands of life histories...

  • Do Americans discipline harshly?

    Harsh discipline, including spanking, is never a good idea. Although all reputable childhood professional associations agree that harsh discipline, including various forms of corporal punishment, is a highly problematic way to treat children, Americans continue to administer harsh discipline at...

  • Are sleep medications for children a good idea?

    Children and sleep problems – they seem to go together like horse and carriage, as the old saying goes. In recent years, there has been an explosion in the number of medications—prescription and over-the-counter—that produce sleepiness. And, expectably, these medications are...

  • Kids' mental health affects income as adults

    An important, unprecedented study from the renowned RAND Corporation has found that children with emotional challenges, such as anxiety and depression, grow up to earn less than those who did not have emotional challenges. Over a lifetime, emotionally challenged children earn 20 percent less on...

  • Are Medications for Children's Emotional Conditions Overused?

    Few questions related to children’s mental health are more controversial than whether psychotropic medications are over prescribed for children. There is no doubt about the dramatic increase in their rise and the efforts of the pharmaceutical industry to market them. Are these trends...