In Your Child in the Balance, child psychiatrist, Kevin Kalikow examines the highly topical and thorny question of whether and when to prescribe psychiatric medication to children. As parents, are we too ready to run to our pediatrician for Ritalin when our child shows the first sign of inattention at school? Or do we instead shy away from our doctor"s recommendation to consider an anti-depressant for a chronically sad and withdrawn teenager? Among the ever-growing outcry that psychiatric medicines are over-prescribed to children and adolescents today, how is a parent to know whether medication is the right treatment for their troubled child? Dr. Kalikow tackles these questions with the sensitivity and insight of years of experience helping families through the thicket of research and opinion to find the right answer for their child. Through many colorful vignettes, he explores our efforts to protect our children from the inevitable hurts and disappointments of childhood, and the role that medication can play in that attempt. On the other side, Kalikow shows us our determination to have our children succeed or fail on their own, the way we had to do, even to the point of refusing the medication that might help them overcome a serious and potentially chronic disability. Dr. Kalikow guides readers through the maze of possible treatment decisions--the many different families of psychiatric medication, alternative treatments including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and perhaps the most difficult decision of no treatment at all. He closes the book by examining one family"s difficult journey to the decision to medicate their acutely anxious daughter. Your Child in the Balance: An Insider"s Guide to the Psychiatric Medicine Dilemma is an important and timely book that will hit home to every parent who has seen their child in pain and asked themselves, "I wonder if medication might help."