You Are Not Alone for Parents and Caregivers: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Your Child’s Mental Health

by Christine M. Crawford

“You are Not Alone is the beacon of hope parents and caregivers need…. Every physician and mental health provider should keep copies of this book to give parents when these issues arise; the insights and hope this book provides will be a powerful tool in the provider’s therapeutic toolkit.” —Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D., author, with Oprah Winfrey, of the New York Times #1 bestseller What Happened to You: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing

“Makes the complex world of children’s mental health accessible to all while uplifting the voices and experiences of real parents and caregivers.” —Jay Shetty, #1New York Times bestselling author and host of the On Purpose podcast

The perfect follow-up to You Are Not Alone: a guide for parents, educators, caregivers, and mental health professionals on how to navigate mental healthcare for the young people in their lives.

A growing number of children and teens in the U.S. are struggling with mental health conditions, but parents, teachers, and other caregivers are often at a loss when concerns arise for their own child. Are your preschooler’s constant tantrums typical for their age, or an indication of a developmental difficulty? Is puberty or depression to blame for your pre-teen's challenging behavior? Is my child in the wrong school, or being influenced by the wrong friends? Am I a bad parent or teacher, or am I overreacting? What exactly should I do?

In You Are Not Alone for Parents and Caregivers, child psychiatrist and NAMI’s Associate Medical Director Dr. Christine M. Crawford provides a comprehensive, compassionate, and practical resource for anyone concerned about a child’s mental health. Drawing on her own clinical experience and guidance from leading experts, Dr. Crawford provides a lens through which to understand the many complex factors affecting children’s mental health. Analyzing young people from preschool to high school, she shares insights into how mental health conditions may manifest at different ages, what kind of interventions may be necessary, and what to do to help kids thrive. Throughout, the book channels the collective wisdom of the NAMI community. Parents, caregivers, and young people themselves share personal stories about their paths to recovery, ensuring readers know that they are not alone.

Genres: Parenting, Mental Health, Psychology, Nonfiction

432 pages, Hardcover

Published September 10, 2024

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a phenomenal resource!

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive and complete guide to navigating information and systems when you need support for managing the mental health of your child. Aligns well with Canadian experience although this is an American resource. A beginners guide with real talk and an unbiased delivery of things no one wants to talk about or are afraid to ask.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive and unbiased. I was so pleased to see that complex trauma and ACEs were included, in addition to many other long-recognized mental health conditions, and that all treatment options for each of the diagnoses were discussed. Medication was typically explored last, which tacitly acknowledges the fact that medication alone is often not the most effective approach. And the importance of building your child’s self-regulation toolkit is emphasized several times; if you yourself lack these skills, building and modeling them for for child and working together to co-regulate can be an extremely effective way to support your child through all of life’s inevitable challenges, not just on their mental health journey. In addition, I cannot express how much I appreciated the prudent and accurate perspective on the DSM-5 as a useful tool for knowing how to approach treating a set of symptoms, but that, as Dr. Crawford states, “diagnosis is not prognosis.”

While the book is supposed to be based on first-hand accounts however, it didn’t read that way, and, I’m not going to lie, it is a bit of a slog to get through. I sincerely urge you to read it cover to cover though, and not simply read the sections you think are relevant to your situation. Again, “diagnosis is not prognosis,” and different types of care providers might have different diagnoses for your child because they are approaching your child through the lens of their specialty or type of practice, but also diagnoses change. What is true today might not be true tomorrow, so having a complete picture of the landscape of mental illness in children is so very important and will make you more agile as things evolve. In addition, you will learn so much about how to navigate the complexities of getting your child the support they need and the types of care providers they might work with along their journey. I chose to listen to the audiobook on my commute, and that was a good approach to chipping away at it, so you might consider doing the same.

I’ll also just share that while I don’t have any children, I am the caregiver for an adult with mental illness, and I’m also a college educator, and so often I find that reading books about parenting or about mental illness in children gives me insight into what some of the adults I work with and care about are experiencing. That then provides me with some ideas about the best ways to support them and, in some cases, to help meet needs that were not met in their childhood. This would be a 5-star book if it was more readable, but the information alone warrants 4.5 stars.

[Lynsie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great resource and full of important information for parents. There are separate sections for each of several different mental health diagnoses, so a family dealing exclusively with one may not need to read large chunks of the book. The first few chapters are the most important- how do we talk to kids and teens about their inner worlds in a supportive/nonjudgement way?

I’d definitely recommend this to the parents of students I work with, or to parents of young children so they know signs of mental illness to look out for in adolescence.

[Brandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review. I am the mother of a teenager and a scout leader. My son was diagnosed with ADHD in second grade. This book will be a helpful tool as we continue to deal with his mental health as well as the mental health of the scouts that I lead. I gave it 4 stars because I felt that the snippets of interviews were not in depth enough to be very helpful and some of the sections felt like a brochure for NAMI. Overall I'm glad that I read this book it will help me have more meaningful conversations with my son and my scouts.

[Hayley Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that this is a great resource for parents who might be concerned about their child; I would take some parts with a grain of salt-not that this isn’t a great resource but each child is different and I think this is a great support to help caregivers start conversations with their children and their children’s providers. Definitely would recommend this!

[Heather Sundstrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be handed out to every parent. Sooooo helpful and just covers EVERYTHING