Does My Child Need Medication?
Episode Description
When our children are struggling with their mental health, it can be hard knowing how to help them. However, in addition to therapy, medication can be a viable and effective option for improving your child’s mental health. In this episode of Mind Your Mind, our host Tim Unsinn talks with psychiatric mental health nurse Amanda Daggett about how to know if your child needs medication, what the process is for a prescription, and how to tell if their medication is right for them.What to Expect
- When to consider medication for your child
- How to know what medication is right for your child
Resources: Learn More
- “Psychiatric Medication for Children and Adolescents: Part II—Types of Medications,” aacap.org
- “Complete Guide to ADHD Medications,” childmind.org
Things to Think About
- A full psychiatric diagnostic assessment ensures that each child is prescribed with the medicine best suited for them.
- It’s important to monitor your child when they’re taking medication, both for signs of its effectiveness and potential side effects.
- Medication providers work collaboratively with families to find the right treatment for their child.
About the Guest
Amanda Daggett is a board-certified Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. She diagnoses and treats mental health disorders in children, adolescents, and adults. She strives to provide competent, high-quality, patient-centered, holistic care—which includes therapy and medication management—and work with a team of professionals to help patients achieve optimal wellness.
Transcript
Does My Child Need Medication?
Featuring Amanda Daggett, Nurse Practitioner, Dakota Family Services
Tim Unsinn:
Welcome to Mind Your Mind, a podcast presented by Dakota Family Services an outpatient behavioral health Clinic, located in Minot, Bismarck, and Fargo, North Dakota. In this podcast, I will talk with our experts about understanding and nurturing our mental health and wellness. I'm your host, Tim Unsinn. Join me each episode as we explore the intricacies of our minds, decrease the stigma of mental illness, learn practical tips for managing our mental health and wellbeing, and recognize when it's time to ask for help. Join me now to mind your mind. Welcome to this episode of Mind Your Mind. Our guest is Amanda Daggett. Amanda is a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. Amanda, it is great to have you on Mind Your Mind. Our topic is, does my child need medication? However, before we get to today's topic, there's a question I ask all of our guests, and that is, why do you do what you do?
Amanda Daggett:
Thank you for having me. I do what I do because I like to help people. I wanna make a meaningful difference in other people's lives and the lives of my patients and anyone that I meet a lot of nurses like to help.
Tim Unsinn:
Great answer. So today's topic again is, does my child need medication? What are some signs that I should consult a medication provider for my child?
Amanda Daggett:
If your child is having difficulty functioning, maybe they're having difficulty socializing with other children, they're having problems functioning at school, maybe in interpersonal relationships with teachers or completing their coursework, maybe they're having problems at home. So that could be outbursts or even shutting down. If you notice a change and it's hard for your child to do things, that's when it could be time to reach out to a psychiatric medication provider.
Tim Unsinn:
So, are medications safe for kids?
Amanda Daggett:
So in psychiatric medications for children, there isn't as much research as there is for adults. There's several reasons for that, and one is probably because ethically not a whole lot of parents wanna put their children in studies and worry about, you know, is my child gonna get a placebo? And they're not getting the help that they need right now, in order for us to practice safely, we like to start with medications that are FDA approved. So that means that safety and efficacy have been established. But a lot of the times we do what's called off-label prescribing, and that is just because there's not as much research in pediatrics. So children and adolescents, when we do off-label prescribing, what that means is it's not FDA approved, but there is still some research and some clinical knowledge showing that these medications do tend to work for these purposes. And generally we see that they're well tolerated when we do that, and even when we prescribe something that is FDA approved, we have to closely monitor the child because every person is different in how they respond to medications. So we make sure that the parent and the child themselves and anybody who might interact with the child, so like teachers, other family members, are aware of what the potential side effects are and also what to look for to say, Hey, this medication is working, and that's kind of how we safely prescribe.
Tim Unsinn:
Well, it sounds like communication is the key piece of that puzzle.
Amanda Daggett:
Absolutely. Communication and observation.
Tim Unsinn:
So how do I know which medication is right for my child? I'm gonna guess there's, there's quite a bit of consultation that goes into that.
Amanda Daggett:
Absolutely. So how we know what medication to use, you have to do a full psychiatric diagnostic assessment. So we have to come in and see the child. Once I see a child for the first time, I get to know them really well, I go back to their birth. Were there any complications? Were their birth, what has it been like for them growing up so far? Did they meet all their developmental milestones? I ask about, you know, medical symptoms they're experiencing medical history, family historyand then we go back to the symptoms that are bringing the child, you know, you're bringing your child in to see me. We go over all of those symptoms and we go through a full workup. After that, we can get a diagnosis and based on the specific symptoms that your child is experiencing, based on what they've tried already, maybe therapy is what they need and what we should start out with based on the diagnosis or how we can anticipate the response.
Amanda Daggett:
Sometimes we need a specific medication and that we go back to, you know, what's FDA approved, what has the most well established safety and efficacy. But in, we also work, you know, as a team with the parents, with the caregivers, with the children to just go over any options. Like maybe a family member has tried something for the same diagnosis and it's worked really well for them. And that goes back to talking about the genetics. Genetics highly influence how our body responds to medications. So knowing that family history is also a piece of that.
Tim Unsinn:
Well, I guess one of the questions I should have asked early on is we, you know, you mentioned parents in that connection talking about medications for their child, and to hear you talk about the fact that when you diagnose a child, you spend time working with them and, and it could be something as therapy versus medication. So as you work with parents, I'm gonna guess they have more questions about what is, is the medicine the last resort or the first resort?
Amanda Daggett:
Right. And that depends on what condition it is and the severity of the condition. So say a, a child comes in and it's very severe depression and they're having some suicidal ideation, you know, that's not something that we would generally say, let's try therapy first because this is severe. Then we'd look at starting medications, but there's a lot of factors that go into it.
Tim Unsinn:
Yeah. It really appreciate hearing the fact that we work with the family, we work with a child, we are trying to find out what happened to them.
Amanda Daggett:
Absolutely. One thing that I always tell patients is I work as a team with them. Like I'm here to work for them. And what we decide to do for treatment is really collaborative.
Tim Unsinn:
Amanda Daggett has been our guest on Mind Your Mind. Amanda is a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. Great insights into child if they need medication. Very good. Good stuff. Before we let you go though, always have that final question. And that is what do you do personally to mind your mind?
Amanda Daggett:
Great question. One thing that I like to do is I compartmentalize things. So if I'm working, if I know I'm working really hard at work, I know that I need to take some time just for myself to relax, or I schedule just time for friends. So if I'm working too hard in one area, I try to relax a little more in another.
Tim Unsinn:
There's not a wrong answer to that one. It's just more important to take care of our mind. So thank you very much. Thank you for being on Mind Your Mind.
Amanda Daggett:
Thank you for having me.
Tim Unsinn:
Thank you for joining us for Mind Your Mind, a podcast presented by Dakota Family Services. For more information, links to additional resources, contact information, and much more, go to Dakota family services.org.
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