BipolarCentral
Your One Stop Source For Information On Bipolar Disorder

Loved One With Bipolar Disorder?
Discover How to Cope and Deal with
Your loved One's Bipolar Disorder

Do You Have Bipolar Disorder?
Learn the Secrets to Cope and Deal
With Your Bipolar Disorder

Child With Bipolar Disorder?
Learn How to REALLY Help
And Support Your Child

Dating Someone With Bipolar?
Secrets to a Successful
Relationship Revealed

Marrying Someone With Bipolar?
Learn How to Support Your Spouse
and Avoid Common Mistakes

Need Money Because of Bipolar Disorder?
Learn How to Be Successful Even if
You are Dealing with Bipolar Disorder

Drug Addiction and Bipolar Disorder
Secrets to Beating Drug Addiction
When Dealing with Bipolar Disorder

Need Affordable Health Insurance?
Information You Can't Live Without
If You are Dealing with Bipolar Disorder

In Debt Because of Bipolar Disorder?
Get out of debt fast!

Improve Your Emotional Health
Reduce Your Stress Levels and
Increase Your Brain Power

Helping Our Teenagers Deal with a Parent who has Bipolar Disorder

by Connie Curts

Over the past three decades, my siblings, my husband, and I have discovered and learned several ways to help our teenagers deal with a parent who has bipolar behavior. The concepts in this article work with younger children, too, but for me, it was not as easy speaking with the pre-teens and elementary school age children. Therefore, I let others in my family use their expertise with the younger children.

Among the most helpful actions we took with our teens are:

--Explaining that the person with bipolar behavior has an illness affecting what the person says and does, as well as how the person says or does it.

--Providing some information on bipolar symptoms and what other families have experienced. References from this website (www.bipolarcentral.com) are very helpful.

--Explaining that the person with bipolar behavior is not acting in the undesirable, negative manners specifically toward the teenager. Encourage the teenager to examine and analyze the person's behavior toward other people, both inside and outside the family, during the various bipolar phases. Discuss examples of the same behavior acted out toward others.

--Explain that the teenager has no control over the illness or the person with it. The ill behavior is not the fault of the teen, nor is it something the teen can fix.

Since teenagers typically verify and validate for themselves what we adults say as part of their normal growth toward adulthood and independence, we encouraged them to do some research on their own. To one of our daughters and two nieces, I said, "Check up on us, too, to make sure we didn't misunderstand the information." With my son, I found it most helpful to agree aloud with
his research's accuracy, because it enhanced his self-confidence and let him know, without a doubt, that he is not alone seeing and dealing with the problematic behavior.

When there appeared to be a discrepancy or inaccuracy between the teen's research and our own research, we discreetly questioned the source and acknowledged that we adults could have erred. I always offer to research the issue together to clarify the question as soon as possible, and to
insure we all get the same information. This method of handling discrepancies demonstrates sincere concern about our teen's having accurate information in order to deal with the situations that arise during various bipolar phases in the best way possible.

During my own research, I found tremendous benefit from the book "Surviving a Borderline Parent" (ISBN 1-57224-328-7), by Kimberlee Roth and Freda B. Friedman, PhD., LCSW. From my layman's research, I understand Borderline Personality Disorder to be very similar to bipolar behavior.
Apparently the biggest difference is the duration of the phases. Borderline Personality behavior phases seldom last more than a few hours, and rarely more than one day, whereas bipolar behavior may last days or weeks. This book was written for adults; however, I gave it as a gift to our 16-year-old daughter, an avid reader who excitedly shared the details with her 12-year-old sister, aunts, teachers, friends, and anyone else who would listen.

She still raves about the value of this book because it provides concrete examples of what you can say or do to keep yourself mentally healthy, heal from past wounds, and ways to prepare to minimize the hurt and intensity of future incidents. She immediately incorporated many examples in her own dealings with her mother, and quite frankly, I am amazed at her maturity and success in keeping herself stable.

Although actions listed in this article helped our family, each family's dynamics differ. Therefore, I suggest you view our actions as concepts, not as specific 'do's or don'ts.' Choose your own wording and examples when talking to your children as well. Godspeed.

About the Author

Connie Curts is a contributing author for www.BipolarCentral.com.

Back to Article List

This Week's Bipolar News

Living With Bipolar Depression
North American Press Syndicate  
(NAPSI)-The more you know about a condition such as bipolar disorder, and in particular the depressive episodes of the condition, the better able you may be ...

Harvard Psychiatrist Must Suspend Clinical Trials Over Conflicts
InjuryBoard.com
The New York Times reports, “Dr. Biederman’s work helped to fuel a 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder and a ...

Fortunate Folks Like To Give Back
Detroit Free Press  
"It came out of the pain I had inside of me for many years," said Prechter, whose Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Research Fund supports groundbreaking genetic ...

Click here for all Bipolar News.

Featured Article:

Being the Ultimate Perfectionist

                                                           By Michele Soloway Sexton

I am the ultimate perfectionist.  Yes, me.  I even got a fortune cookie one time that said, "You have a yearning for perfection," do you believe that?"  Even Confucius knows it!

But it's a real battle for me.  I expect things from myself that I would never expect from anyone else, and it really messes with my bipolar disorder, because, well, no one's perfect, and no one can live with that kind of stress.

So I was talking to someone about it lately, and they told me, "It's ok to strive for perfection, as long as you don't expect to arrive at perfection."

It's ok to make mistakes.  That's what I've been learning.  If you don't learn that, you'll be bound up in fear (another thing that's bad for our bipolar disorder). 

Click here to read the entire article

Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

Copyright 2004-2008, BipolarCentral.com