Raising Troubled Kids: Help for Parents of Children With Mental Illness or Emotional Disorders

"Raising Troubled Kids" is for parents and family members who live with a troubled child or teen. It is a fact-filled and practical guide on how to get a stressful home under control quickly: including techniques for working with a troubled child's behavior, professional advice from therapists and psychiatrists, hopeful research findings, and anecdotes and stories from parents, grandparents, and siblings. The author, Margaret Puckette, lays out priorities she says must be different from those of 'normal' families, starting with the message that everyone must take care of themselves and each other first. There are chapters on safety measures, setting boundaries and structure in the home, and how to tell the difference between a 'normal' child's difficult behavior and truly disturbed behavior that requires mental health treatment. Sprinkled throughout is humor, good news from mental health research, and tips and advice only an experienced caregiver would know.